Tag: OpEd

Literature

Hot Take: Health Care Copays are Placing Our Inmates at Risk

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Hot Take: Health Care Copays are Placing Our Inmates at Risk

Hebron Kelecha – Class of 2021

Imagine you work in the kitchen of a correctional facility and your copay for a doctors’ visit costs $5. However, you make a whopping 33 cents an hour.

That is the reality faced by many who are incarcerated in prisons throughout the United States. It is not surprising that most of our prison population is poor when they enter the prison system. Couple this with jobs that pay less than a dollar an hour and fees for accessing health care, and we are laying the foundation for negative health outcomes.

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Literature

The Refocused Health Policy Sandstorm

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The Refocused Health Policy Sandstorm

Kate Dixon, M1, Class of 2023

The world of health policy has been consumed with the concern of drug prices – just absolutely and utterly offended by the list price of brand name drugs. How could you not be? When you have drugs like Zolgensma – a brand new drug approved to treat spinal muscular atrophy – running $2.1 million for a single treatment course, it’s pretty easy to throw blame at Big Pharma for the egregious state of the United States’ health care spending. However, when you zoom out and compare drug spending to other expenditures in the vast and complex world of US health care, it becomes pretty clear where the true financial abuse is present – Big Name Hospitals.

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Literature

A Respectful Pro-Life View

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A Respectful Pro-Life View
Kelsey

So many of us read opinion pieces about abortion for one of two reasons: to get fired up because we agree, or to get fired up because we disagree. I wish we could have this talk in person, because I don’t want it to be that way. Reading someone else’s writing on a screen can seem impersonal, one-sided. It feels like the writer of the piece gets to continue on with their opinion, that you don’t get a chance to have your say in between each line. I wish we could have this talk in person so we could spend the majority of our time discussing how much we agree on. Instead, it often seems we already have our minds made up, and this unfortunately leaves so little room for discussion, so little room for loving one another. So, I want to start by saying I think we agree on much more than we disagree on. Continue reading “A Respectful Pro-Life View” →

Literature

More Than Just a Number

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More Than Just a Number
Daniel Ortiz, M4, Class of 2020

You are more than just a number.

But of course, you already knew that… right? Unfortunately, the reality is harrowing. Throughout our curriculum and challenging gauntlet of test after test, we discover that complex clinical reasoning is not submissive to the 3-digit score engraved onto our transcript for residency directors to see. Continue reading “More Than Just a Number” →

Literature

A Guide to a Gene-Editing Philosophy

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A Guide to a Gene-Editing Philosophy
Nathan Stacy, M2, Class of 2022

Super Humans. Eradication of genetic diseases. Rich people boosting their kids’ traits, poor people left in the dust. Playing God.

These themes are hashed and rehashed in the great gene editing debate. And they all must be taken into account in what I will attempt to do next, which is to lay out a (beginners version of) a moral framework in which to understand and judge gene editing.

My thesis is this: Continue reading “A Guide to a Gene-Editing Philosophy” →

Literature

Make People Spend Their Own Money

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Make People Spend Their Own Money
Nathan Stacy, M1, Class of 2022

In college, my parents paid for my gas. I was broke (still am), but it was nice to not have to worry about the price of oil barrels.

In college, I always drove my friends around. Didn’t matter where we were going – ½ mile or 50 miles, I was always the driver. Sometimes they would offer to give me gas money, and I’d always tell them to not worry about it.

These are related. I knew that I didn’t have to pay for my own gas. So it didn’t bother me to always drive. It didn’t bother me to turn down gas money. It wasn’t really my money, you see. It was, as I like to call it, “magic money.” Continue reading “Make People Spend Their Own Money” →

Literature

Medicare for All – What is it, Exactly?

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Medicare for All – What is it, Exactly?
Kate Dixon, Class of 2023
Kate has worked in Washington D.C. for the past two years in policy.

We’ve all seen the political tweets. Typically, something incoherent with poor grammar from one extreme of the political spectrum or the other (see my personal favorite about “HealtCare”). And as of late those tweets have had a lot to do with Medicare for All. But what exactly is Medicare for All (M4A)? Continue reading “Medicare for All – What is it, Exactly?” →

Literature

Systemizing Systematic Systems

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Systemizing Systematic Systems

Justin Coogle, M4, Class of 2019

The complicated reality of practicing medicine in today’s day and age

Health care is large and complex. Anyone who has spent one week working in a hospital, no matter the role, would agree to that.Even the layman who attends his annual physical exam or goes to see his doctor for a nasty cough obtains a glimpse of the complicated web we’ve found ourselves in when it comes to delivering care to the patient. Improving health care for our patients should be a universal passion, but health care reform isn’t so simple. If I were a betting man, I’d say no single piece of legislation or sweeping political campaign will fix the rut we’re in. Hot topics like “Should we switch to Single Payer?”, “Medicare for All!”, and “HMOs are the way of the future!” are all things buzzing on the news, because people are frustrated, which is totally fair. I’d like to share some issues that I think get overlooked in the national narrative and are the elements I personally find most disconcerting when it comes to the future of health care reform.

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Literature

Community: an Antidote to the Medical School Vacuum

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Community: an Antidote to the Medical School Vacuum

Nathan Stacy, M1, Class of 2022

Do any of you feel a little bit…empty in medical school? If you don’t, you should read this anyways. But if so, you are definitely not alone. In fact, you have that in common with a majority of your fellow mid-20’s millennials. Referring to this time as a ‘quarter life crisis’ is no longer tongue-in-cheek. While we are accomplishing tasks, deepening our medical knowledge, and strengthening our resumes, there are many questions that can bubble up under the surface of this busyness: Is all of this worth it? Will it provide me a fulfilling and sustaining life? What do I have outside of medicine?

Continue reading “Community: an Antidote to the Medical School Vacuum” →