Contributing Writer
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Maria is a fourth year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, IL, class of 2022. In 2018, she graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with a Bachelor of Arts in biology and Spanish. She enjoys traveling, reading, exploring the city, and trying new foods in her free time. After graduating medical school, Maria would like to pursue a career in internal medicine, with an emphasis on health equity and medical education.
I was sitting in on a patient visit with the attending physician and a senior medical student, and I could tell that both of them were trying to guide him back on track as gently as possible.
Universities have been profiting off students due to the capitalistic and flawed nature of our health care system. Regional hospital networks prevent students from utilizing their insurance elsewhere. With nowhere else to turn, they are forced to pay high premiums for the university plan.
Nationally, our current medical education model fails to address the fundamental tenets of the U.S. health care system, health care policy, and business management. Despite the recent major shift in health care policy, medical schools have proved universally inept at equipping future doctors with the knowledge and tools they need to influence policy in their professional field and to thrive in their careers.
As the American health care system continues to seemingly spend more and get ranked lower than other developed countries, many progressives have suggested a shift to single-payer health care as a solution.
Daily labs are commonly ordered on hospitalized patients. While such tests may be indicated when patients are acutely ill and the clinical picture is unclear, there are many times when this is not the case.
To culminate a year rife with political turmoil, one final wildfire swept the nation at the close of 2017. After initial reports from inside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggesting that it had received instruction to forbid the usage of seven words in its budget formulations, media outlets and the general public took en masse to declare a state of Orwellian emergency.
It has become more and more evident with time that the health care delivery system in the United States is riddled with issues, which have led to many disagreements about policy because there is no clear and universally acceptable solution to our problems.
This past summer, I was fortunate enough to be an intern for the government relations arm of a national medical society. Below is an attempt at recreating a “Hill Day” so that you, the reader, can get a better idea of how policy is influenced.
As another ACA repeal looms in the near future — after ACHA and BCRA — the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson (Graham-Cassidy) legislation makes me think back to a patient I took care of a few months ago.
Intellectually, I understood the potential devastation that a lack of health insurance could bring to so many Americans. But it wasn’t until 2012 that I viscerally felt just how health care policies made in faraway Washington affected the lives of so many.
In the 2016 election cycle, millions of Americans elected a president who had never before held public office, believing they had “rejected the political establishment.” While the underlying idea of this perspective has its merits, there is a group even less represented — and more desperately needed — in the federal government than businessmen: scientists and physicians.
We are in agreement. A robust and intellectual discussion of health care reform requires knowledge of the factors in play. Yet, we are deeply troubled by the simplicity and lack of nuance in a number of your arguments. Here are some our responses.
Writer-in-Training
University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
My name is Frank, and I am a student at University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. As a new medical education intern, I aim to write about potential opportunities for improving our medical education system. In particular, I am interested in exploring ways to incorporate lifestyle medicine into our medical curriculum in order to maximize the achievement of health maintenance and primary prevention of chronic diseases. My future goal is to go into internal medicine with a key focus on preventive medicine and public health.
Thank you in advance for reading my work! I welcome any potential comments and criticisms.
