Moon Bin’s Death Is A Painful Reminder Of The Mental Health Crisis In Asian Communities
In recent years, many members of the Korean entertainment industry have been more vocal about mental illness — especially after the deaths of several rising stars, including actor Yoo Joo-eun in 2022 and actor/singer Kim Jong-hyun in 2017. The community’s most recent loss is Moon Bin, a 25-year-old K-pop star and member of the boy […]
Prescriptions for Stimulants Jumped During the Pandemic
Prescriptions for stimulants have risen in recent years, with the sharpest increases seen during the pandemic, according to the CDC. In an analysis of claims from employer-sponsored insurance, the percentage of enrollees with one or more prescription stimulant fills rose from 3.6% in 2016 to 4.1% in 2021, Melissa Danielson, MSPH, of the CDC, and […]
Opinion | Patients Are Dying in Emergency Department Waiting Rooms
A special session of Congress was called 35 years ago to make lawmakers and the public aware of stories of patients left to die in hospital parking lots for lack of insurance. Around the time of that congressional testimony, called “Equal Access to Health Care: Patient Dumping,” a new guarantee came about: that any individual […]
CDC Details Abysmal COVID Vaccination Rate in Youngest Kids
COVID-19 vaccination coverage in kids ages 6 months to 4 years was exceedingly low in the 6 months following FDA’s authorization last June, CDC data showed. Through the end of 2022, only 10.1% of children in this age group had received at least one dose of Moderna or Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine, and just 5.1% had […]
Chest CTs Reveal Abnormalities 2 Years After Severe COVID
Two years after hospitalization for severe COVID-19 illness, more than a third of patients from the pandemic’s early days had lingering pulmonary abnormalities on chest CT scans, according to a prospective study from Wuhan, China. The incidence of persistent interstitial lung abnormalities (ILAs) fell over follow-up after hospital discharge from Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, dropping from […]
Opinion | The Agonizing Decision of Caring for an Abusive Parent
“My parents abused me as a child. I went ‘no contact’ with them over 10 years ago, but now my dad is in the hospital with a serious diagnosis and the discharge planner keeps asking me to be involved. I don’t want to. What are my rights?” I read the lengthy message several times, feeling […]
5 Happiest Types of Doctors
[embedded content] Over the last few years, the global pandemic has highlighted many of the long-standing issues within medicine. With all of this negativity, you might think that medicine is a dying career or that all physicians are burned out and miserable. Not so fast. There are still many physicians who lead happy and fulfilling […]
Medicare Advantage Plans Take Top Spot in Shkreli Awards
Medicare Advantage plans took the top spot in this year’s Shkreli Awards, the annual list from the Lown Institute that calls attention to some of healthcare’s most greedy and unethical behavior. The plans’ penchant for defrauding or overbilling Medicare by an estimated $25 billion in 2020 alone by saying beneficiaries were much sicker than they […]
Are U.S. Healthcare Workers Better Off Unionized?
Labor unionization among U.S. healthcare workers was low in recent years, even though union membership or coverage was tied to higher weekly earnings and better non-cash benefits, researchers reported. Out of 14,298 healthcare workers surveyed, 13.2% reported union membership or coverage, with no significant trend from 2009 through 2021, according to Xiaojuan Li, PhD, of […]
Opinion | A Rough Road Ahead for Healthcare Providers
After weathering the immense difficulties of COVID-19 for the past few years, medical groups and health systems leaders will not receive any respite in 2023. Huge challenges await these leaders in the coming year in many areas — finance, operations, clinical practice, and workforce. Yet, progress is possible as some will leverage the numerous strengths […]