Clinical care for Obesity and Diet Related illnesses needs more attention to Societal Determinants of Health Article from NEJM website about how despite rates of obesity starting to level off overall, the lowest income and minority populations continue to show a sharp increase. A focus on those factors as contributory needs to be a part of the discussion.
Social stigma makes the opioid crisis hard to confront (7min) There are many reasons why the opioid crisis is so hard to confront. One of them is social stigma. It often extends beyond users themselves, to their families. People see addiction as a moral weakness, and by extension, the moral weakness of their families.
When drinking ruins your liver - should you qualify for a transplant? When patients develop alcohol liver disease, they are often forced to wait 6 months to prove they can abstain from alcohol before they will be considered for a transplant. Is that a fair amount of time? Is that a fair practice at all?
Withholding surgery: How gaps in policy fail people who inject drugs A recent New York Times article described a harrowing situation faced by some people who inject drugs and develop endocarditis, a life-threatening infection caused by bacteria that enter the bloodstream and settle in the heart. The article described doctors in Tennessee deciding whether to perform repeat costly heart surgeries on patients who were re-infected with endocarditis as a result of ongoing illicit drug use—and at times declining to operate. There are policy failures that are to blame, too, for how and why resources are allocated this way. This looks at those failures and how our bias influences both the policies and how they are applied.
Injecting Drugs can ruin a heart - how many second chances should a user get? A life-threatening heart infection afflicts a growing number of people who inject opioids or meth. Costly surgery can fix it, but the addiction often goes unaddressed.
My Marriage Didn't End When I Became a Widow Dr. Lucy Kalanithi writes about her husband's passing and how she found a way to keep him present in her life will making a life of her own as well.
How Long Have I Got Left? Neurosurgeon Dr. Paul Kalanithi describes his own experience with cancer and facing mortality - and how it's opened his eyes to what patients want to hear and how doctors can best advise them.
Doctors need to learn about dying, too Dr. Michael Nisco addresses the importance of training physicians in appropriately navigating discussions with their patients on the subjects of death and dying.
Sight Unseen (must download to hear) Listen to a family's reaction after learning that their son's death had been documented by a photographer embedded with a medevac team in Afghanistan.
Jean-Paul Mari: The chilling aftershock of a brush with death Journalist Jean-Paul Mari talks about his brush with death when a shell hit the building he was reporting from in Bahgdad. This discussion delves into the unseen scars that those who struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder must endure.
Hard Conversations About How To Die Dealing with both Alzheimer's and prostate cancer a man discusses his options and decisions with his doctor and his spouse
The Bitter End When it comes to the critical question of what to do when death is at hand, there seems to be a gap between what most people want providers to do for them, and what providers want done for themselves.
My Marriage Didn't End When I Became a Widow Dr. Lucy Kalanithi writes about her husband's passing and how she found a way to keep him present in her life will making a life of her own as well.
Doctors need to learn about dying, too Dr. Michael Nisco addresses the importance of training physicians in appropriately navigating discussions with their patients on the subjects of death and dying.
Sight Unseen (must download to hear) Listen to a family's reaction after learning that their son's death had been documented by a photographer embedded with a medevac team in Afghanistan.
Jean-Paul Mari: The chilling aftershock of a brush with death Journalist Jean-Paul Mari talks about his brush with death when a shell hit the building he was reporting from in Bahgdad. This discussion delves into the unseen scars that those who struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder must endure.
Hard Conversations About How To Die Dealing with both Alzheimer's and prostate cancer a man discusses his options and decisions with his doctor and his spouse
Murderer in the Mirror by Scott Eggener A surgeon recalls the devastation of the first time a patient died on the operating table.