Tag: health care reform

Daniel Pham Daniel Pham (1 Posts)

Writer-in-Training

University of Oklahoma College of Medicine


Daniel Pham is a medical student at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. He has interests in mental health, social medicine, health policy/ethics, and the medical humanities. He tweets at @danielxpham.




Debunking the Can of Worms

Like many medical students, I am familiar with the antiparasitic medication ivermectin, a common drug taught in medical school. Ivermectin became an unexpected subject in the COVID-19 pandemic. However, after seeing a patient in the clinic taking ivermectin as an alternative to vaccination, the news hit differently.

Q&A with Dr. Timothy Dyster, MD

In this Q&A, we feature the founder of MedEd Models Dr. Timothy Dyster. Currently a fellow in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Dyster also serves as a resident editor for the Journal of Graduate Medical Education and is the lead contributing editor for the first edition clinical handbook, Huppert’s Notes. He shares his thoughts on medical education and advice for medical students looking to foray into this field.

Prescriptive Autonomy

An anxious, 36-year-old Hispanic female lays on the exam table, her feet in stirrups. A sleeved arm juts out between her tented legs as she stares resolutely at the ceiling. I wonder if she is afraid of what the amorphous black and white structures shifting on the ultrasound monitor may reveal.

Health, Identity and History: Vaccine Hesitancy Among Minority Groups in the COVID-19 Pandemic

With the development and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine and the arrival of the summer season, people are feeling happier and beginning to come out of their homes. It’s clear that there is a growing sense of hope that the pandemic may be approaching its conclusion. However, standing in the way of our pursuit of normalcy is the refusal among some to partake in the vaccine, despite its proven efficacy and safety by experts.

Imagine

Upon arriving at the room, we learn that the nurse continued trying to speak to this patient in English despite the patient’s evident inability to speak the language. Following her half-hearted attempt at “patient education,” she proceeded to lift the patient’s gown and attempts to strap on the monitors. As a result, the woman is frightened by her nurse because she is unaware of what this foreign nurse is doing to her and her unborn child. One week out from detention. She is scared. Imagine.

Should Kidneys be Commodities? A Brief Look into Government-Regulated Organ Trading

The Iranian Consultative Assembly, the equivalent of a parliament, legalized living non-related donations in 1988 and set up a new government-run transplant matching system. Within this novel framework, living donors could choose to have their organs typed and registered in advance. If they are needed, a third-party independent organization, the Dialysis and Transplant Patients Association (DTPA), would set up contact between the donors and recipients. The donors would be compensated by a payment from the government, free health insurance, and sometimes additional payment from the recipient. The payment from the government is said to be in the range of $2,000-$4,000.

The Long Overdue Cessation of Harmful Surgeries on Intersex Children

Recently two prominent children’s hospitals have made unprecedented announcements. Boston Children’s Hospital and Chicago’s Laurie Children’s Hospital announced that they would stop performing certain surgeries on children born with intersex traits. These announcements come after huge direct efforts by advocacy groups like The Intersex Jusice Project, lead by Pidgeon Pagonis, and InterAct, a national intersex youth advocacy group. 

Lived experience

Becoming More Emotionally Intelligent, Adaptive Physician-Leaders

Current evidence suggests that much of human health is influenced more significantly by contextual factors like the social determinants of health than the direct receipt of health care. This relatively new understanding has challenged the notion of “physicianhood” and what it means to improve the health of entire populations and communities. With the influx of issues that the pandemic has brought with it, this new model for being a highly effective physician has become even more important.

Precedented: Historical Guidance on Freedom and Health in the Age of COVID-19

We will recall when, during the summer of 2020, the moral and political duty to engage with the most momentous anti-racist movement since the 1960s reanimated a nation paralyzed by fear. By the fall, cataclysmic wildfires on the West Coast poisoned the air from San Francisco to New York City. Coronavirus, cultural upheaval and manifestations of climate change all bore down on us as we entered the most consequential and divisive national election in living memory.

Adrian Anzaldua (2 Posts)

Contributing Writer

University of California, San Francisco-University of California, Berkeley Joint Medical Program


Adrian Anzaldua is a fourth year medical student at the UCSF/UC-Berkeley Joint Medical Program, class of 2021. In 2009, he graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy. He also holds a Masters of Science from UC-Berkeley School of Public Health. After medical school, Adrian will pursue a career in Psychiatry.