Opinion: Reforming and improving organ transplant systems will save lives, taxpayer dollars
Every day, 33 people — disproportionately people of color — die in the U.S. as…
Category: First Opinion
Opinion: Fee or free? The services hospital-based psychologists provide are ‘priceless’
Hospital-based psychologists are sorely undervalued, not just for the care they provide their patients and…
Opinion: MAPGuide: A tool to help improve health-related public-private partnership agreements
Whenever a new infectious outbreak threatens global health, pharmaceutical companies, governments, international organizations, and philanthropies…
Opinion: Jason Karlawish and an Alzheimer’s caregiver on dementia’s ripple effect
In this week’s “First Opinion Podcast,” I speak with Alzheimer’s expert Jason Karlawish, director of…
Opinion: In light of anti-Asian attacks, medicine needs to listen to Asian American trainees
The shocking shooting rampage in Atlanta targeting Asian spas, followed not long after by an…
Opinion: A caregiver and physician discuss the financial implications of dementia
In his recent First Opinion, “The long, exhausting reach of dementia care,” Jason Karlawish, a…
Opinion: Vaccination certificates won’t end lockdown. Prosocial approaches will
Covid-19 immunity and vaccination certificates are being held up as golden tickets to the new…
Opinion: Adding social determinants gives public health maps a sense of place and time
Before becoming a public health researcher, I trained as a geologist. That may seem like…
Opinion: Many hospitalized Covid-19 patients are given antibiotics. That’s a problem
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues into its second year, public health experts are increasingly concerned…
Opinion: Money from opioid lawsuits is urgently needed now
Opioid companies are being forced to pay for their grave mistakes and misdeeds in helping…
Opinion: Lessons from Nordic countries can accelerate the impact of AI in medicine
The Swedish-made Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut is one of the fastest and most beautiful cars ever…
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Opinion: How will people act after getting vaccinated? The complex psychology of safety
A friend invited me to her home for a birthday party. “Ten of us will…
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Opinion: Covid-19 makes ‘brutally clear’ why we need to add a public option for health insurance
As the United States rebuilds from this pandemic, we must aim higher than a return…
Opinion: Building back better requires strengthening primary care
As the pandemic enters its second year, the health care workers who care for patients…
Opinion: A vaccine for my shame
The Covid-19 crisis has revealed all manner of injustices, from hazardous work to overcrowded nursing…
Opinion: Shattering the infertility myth: What we know about Covid-19 vaccines and pregnancy
During trying times, myths and falsehoods sprout like mushrooms after rainfall. One of many that…
Opinion: Biden should use emergency powers to license Covid-19 vaccine technologies to the WHO for global access
President Biden’s aggressive new timetable for the sprint to full vaccine availability — his target…
Opinion: Listen: Kara Zivin on seeing her own struggles during pregnancy reflected in Meghan Markle’s
In this week’s episode of STAT’s “First Opinion Podcast,” I talk with Kara Zivin, a…
Opinion: STAT+: A Biden-Harris Biomanufacturing Initiative could increase supplies of vaccines, therapeutics in one fell swoop
The coronavirus pandemic is generating pressure on the manufacturing of vaccines and therapeutics. Every day…
Opinion: Palliative care works, so why is it rarely used? Follow the money
A decade ago, a team of researchers showed clearly that a new treatment for advanced…
Opinion: We need to start thinking more critically — and speaking more cautiously — about long Covid
A newspaper columnist reached out to me a while back after noticing a few of…
Opinion: Operations research advice for Covid-19 vaccination planners: think big, move fast
The world has marveled at the speed with which science took on and solved the…
Opinion: Dialysis clinics should be able to vaccine their patients on site
One year after Covid-19 was declared a national emergency in the United States, and with…
Opinion: The long, exhausting reach of dementia care
The Covid-19 pandemic is reinforcing a grim lesson we should have taken to heart but…
Opinion: Make residency — and health care — more equitable by scrapping The Match
At the stroke of noon on Friday, March 19, more than 30,000 doctors-to-be across the…
Opinion: Listen: Uché Blackstock on diversity in medicine and a ‘life-altering’ decision
In this week’s episode of STAT’s “First Opinion Podcast,” I talk with emergency physician turned…
Opinion: Prisons are long-term care facilities. So why don’t inmates get priority for Covid-19 vaccination?
In the four-tier priority list for Covid-19 vaccination set out by the Centers for Disease…
Opinion: Trying to manage curiosity-driven science risks limiting discoveries
Ever since Arthur D. Little created the first consulting firm in 1886, management consultants have…
Opinion: Addiction and behavioral health care workers should have access to Covid-19 testing and vaccines
At the beginning of the pandemic, the U.S. government and private organizations rushed to support…
Opinion: Choosing the right director for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office can help lower drug prices
As the Biden administration fills key Cabinet positions, its attention must turn to other critical…
Opinion: Reining in drug patents isn’t a silver bullet against high drug prices
One of the top orders of business for the Biden administration is curbing drug prices….
Opinion: Instead of prior authorization, insurers should go back to the old ‘pay-and-chase’ model
The news Jennifer G. and her husband got from her medical team was devastating. If…
Opinion: Meghan Markle gave voice to the despair I once felt during pregnancy
As Meghan Markle revealed to Oprah Winfrey in a now-viral interview that she “did not…
Opinion: STAT+: Q&A with ‘Code Breaker’ author Walter Isaacson on CRISPR, patents, and more
In this week’s episode of the “First Opinion Podcast,” STAT’s Patrick Skerrett talks with journalist,…
Opinion: Listen: Walter Isaacson on CRISPR rivals and a Covid truce
In this week’s episode of STAT’s “First Opinion Podcast,” I talk with journalist, historian, and…
Opinion: ‘Then the world caved in’: 8 experts describe the day they realized Covid-19 was here to stay
This week marks two pandemic “anniversaries” — the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak…
Opinion: ‘Then the world caved in’: 7 experts describe the day they realized Covid-19 was here to stay
This week marks two pandemic “anniversaries” — the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak…
Opinion: Barriers keep many primary care practices from vaccinating seniors
When news first broke in mid-December 2020 that the FDA had issued an emergency use…
Opinion: STAT+: Making pharma’s post-Covid-19 future faster and smarter
There’s nothing like a global pandemic to force a reimagining of one’s business. What it…
Opinion: Don’t let bureaucracy constrict the supply of Covid-19 vaccines
Vaccination, particularly for the most vulnerable Americans, is the surest way for us to overcome…
Opinion: Covid-19 could bring a new era of public health leadership. But will it?
The bubonic plague — also known as the Black Death — killed as many as…
Opinion: Using the new Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine to create equity and trust
The Food and Drug Administration’s recent approval of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency…
Opinion: For early testing of convalescent plasma, we were ‘building the plane while we were flying it’
During the Covid-19 pandemic, clinicians have seen many remarkable things. Among them is how a…
Opinion: Listen: Haider Warraich on hospitals and their communities, yellow berets, and more
In this episode of STAT’s “First Opinion Podcast,” I talk with Haider Warraich, a physician,…
Opinion: The Biden administration’s pandemic agenda must not ignore superbugs
What if another devastating pandemic came on the heels of Covid-19? Unfortunately, that looks increasingly…
Opinion: CRISPR rivals put patents aside to help in fight against Covid-19
In early January 2020, Feng Zhang, a gene-editing researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT…
Opinion: STAT+: Create a U.S. Institute of Health Technology Assessment to preserve innovation and control costs
The public outcry to “do something” about health care spending keeps growing, but fear about…
Opinion: Using a collective ‘virtuous cycle’ to break the pandemic
Medical schools teach students a four-part “virtuous cycle” in which one step positively reinforces the…
Opinion: Why drug prescriptions should include diagnoses
The Covid-19 pandemic is teaching us many tragic lessons along with some instructive ones, like…
Opinion: Remembering Bernard Lown: physician, activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner
I have long thought that there are three types of physician. The first is fascinated…