Opinion: More young people should be getting their cholesterol tested and taking statins
For busy primary care physicians like me, an annual physical with a 27-year-old male is…
Category: First Opinion
Opinion: STAT+: An overlooked way to make participants in clinical trials look more like America
A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (of which one…
Opinion: Adopting the term ‘preaddiction’ would be a serious mistake
The National Institute on Drug Abuse and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism recently proposed…
Opinion: Opportunistic CT: There’s gold in them there images
More than 80 million CT scans are performed each year in the U.S. alone. In…
Opinion: What if we’re talking about teens’ mental health too much?
Every day, it seems, is mental health awareness day. In the U.S., there’s Eating Disorders…
Opinion: Will AI soon diagnose politicians’ mental health conditions from afar?
For psychiatrists, Donald Trump’s third run for the presidency means that we’ll once again face…
Opinion: How ‘screen and refer’ systems fail to help patients
We’ve all had the experience of a doctor or other health care worker staring at…
Opinion: Three ways to test medical AI for safety
This article is adapted from “The AI Revolution in Medicine: GPT-4 and Beyond,” by Peter…
Opinion: Cancer patients shouldn’t be responsible for out-of-pocket costs
In 2023, just under 2 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer. Many will endure…
Opinion: Checklists to screen for patients’ social needs aren’t helping
I once saw a patient who came to the emergency room with injuries that were…
Opinion: Chelsea Clinton: How to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030
Viral hepatitis affects almost 400 million people and kills more than 1 million each year….
Opinion: How I helped Pfizer think through the ethics of Viagra 25 years ago
Twenty-five years ago, 75-year-old Bob Dole — former Republican presidential candidate and U.S. senator from…
Opinion: How Tennessee is creating new opportunities for doctors trained outside the U.S.
This legislative session, Gov. Bill Lee made history by signing a bill that makes Tennessee…
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Opinion: One simple fix for the primary care shortage: assistant physicians
A recent study by the Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage of between 17,800…
Opinion: Fix the rural physician shortage by expanding support for resident training
As the deans of the two public medical schools in Nevada, we are watching with…
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Opinion: How ‘Lessons From the Covid War’ falls short
The stream of books about the government response to the pandemic that began with Michael…
Opinion: Do chatbots have more time to be empathetic than physicians?
As an oncologist, Jennifer Lycette gets to know her patients particularly well. She’s doubtful that…
Opinion: New draft recommendations for mammograms take a one-size-fits-all approach
On May 9, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) released updated draft recommendations…
Opinion: Starting breast cancer screening at 40 saved my life
In 2015, the year I turned 40, the American Cancer Society updated its guidelines for…
Opinion: The U.S. needs to pressure India to improve drug safety
On Feb. 2, the Food & Drug Administration issued an alert warning about “Made in…
Opinion: A breakthrough drug will require big changes for eye care doctors
Advancement in the science of eye care over the past 10 years has led to…
Opinion: Compounding pharmacies offer a fix for shortages of essential drugs
In the early days of the Covid pandemic, gravely ill patients began to fill America’s…
Opinion: China’s complicated role in malaria control in Africa
Ghana has taken a remarkable step in the fight against malaria by becoming the first…
Opinion: Proposed rules to protect health data in an era of abortion bans fall short
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it effectively rescinded national protections of reproductive…
Opinion: Fear-based messaging doesn’t stop drug use. But it does make things worse
It “rots” flesh. It “tears” bone. It will turn you into a “zombie.” According to…
Opinion: Three misconceptions about the accelerated drug approval pathway
On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration’s Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee will…
Opinion: Listen: The coercion built into medical privacy consent forms
Alex Rosenblat is particularly careful when it comes to her digital privacy. She requests to…
Opinion: The tragedy of the Golden Gate Bridge’s $400 million anti-suicide net
Each year about 30 people make the gut-wrenching decision to leap off the Golden Gate…
Opinion: The IRA’s nonsensical distinction between small- and large-molecule drugs
Thanks to advances in science, notably the completion of the Human Genome Project 20 years…
Opinion: Health care coaches are the next big thing. They’re also completely unregulated
John, a hypothetical middle-aged man, is told at his job about a new workplace wellness…
Opinion: The amoxicillin shortage continues to force pediatricians and families to scramble
“So, you don’t have it in liquid form?” I asked. The answer, as usual, was…
Opinion: Clinical trials for Alzheimer’s treatments need to include people with Down syndrome
“I cannot tell you how much it means to me that my extra chromosome might…
Opinion: Why a chatbot might seem more empathetic than a human physician
An April 28 article in JAMA Internal Medicine, “Comparing Physician and Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Responses…
Opinion: Listen: Two medical residents debate their hospital’s unionization drive
In training to become a physician, medical residency can be a grueling period. Residents and…
Opinion: The Global North can’t solve its health care worker shortage by stealing from the Global South
The U.S. is facing unprecedented health care labor shortages and related cost pressures. In the U.K., the…
Opinion: Long waits to see a doctor are a public health crisis
In 2004, the physician search firm Merritt Hawkins first issued their Survey of Physician Appointment…
Opinion: Do masks work? Randomized controlled trials are the worst way to answer the question
Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, before we had vaccines and effective medical procedures, the only…
Opinion: The apparent poisoning of schoolgirls is just one part of Iran’s health crisis
On the first day back to school in April, after time off to celebrate the…
Opinion: There’s a surprisingly easy way to avoid a huge number of major amputations
More than 400 Americans undergo major amputation of a leg, either above or below the…
Opinion: A judge’s infuriating ruling on vaccination puts Mississippi’s children at risk
Mississippi consistently ranks last or near-last in the United States on measures of health. But…
Opinion: STAT+: At-home clinical trials are the future
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, much of the clinical trials industry came…
Opinion: Why involuntary treatment for addiction is a dangerous idea
As the overdose crisis rages on and the pandemic-fatigued public runs low on empathy, there…
Opinion: How small vaccine stockpiles can stop outbreaks of infectious disease from becoming big
Marburg could soon become the second virus in the past year to have experimental vaccine…
Opinion: How journalists can cover RFK Jr.’s antivax presidential run responsibly
Of course it was news when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that he is running…
Opinion: I’m a medical resident. I want to pause the drive to unionize hospital trainees
Medicine is a calling. But far too often, trainees — residents and fellows — at…
Opinion: I’m a medical resident. Here’s why I think my hospital should unionize
As a third-year neurology resident at Mass General Brigham, I started my career at the…
Opinion: Judicial overreach is an immediate hazard to already precarious public health
The United States is in poor health. Life expectancy rates have dropped precipitously, and racial…
Opinion: Generative AI’s three possibly insurmountable challenges for health care
Talk about AI in medicine often focuses on the most exiting possible innovations like precision…
Opinion: RSV vaccine approval should be a top priority for the FDA
The calamity of March 2020 arrived two years later for pediatric units. In the fall…
Opinion: The window is closing to stop deadly drug-resistant fungi like Candida auris
Just one week after the season finale of the HBO show “The Last of Us,”…