I hadn’t recognized her underneath the swelling, bruises, and lacerations. I had been her delivery nurse eight months earlier, when she had begged for a tubal ligation that we could not provide. The patient’s pregnancy was full term and she had signed the consent form 23 days prior, seven days…

By Kyle Beardsley When my family and I were first asked “How are you going?” — which was almost immediately upon our arrival into Australia — we did not quite know how to respond or what to make of it. After a few more friendly greetings of this sort, we…

“Go to the doctor,” we’re told when we get sick. But what about our neighbors who can’t? A growing segment of the United States population can be described as “homebound”, or those who cannot leave their homes without significant help. National studies of people 65 years and older have shown…

Do we have two pandemics circulating around the world under the same name? Covid-19, which is the name we all recognize, and a twindemic of the Western “lifestyle” disease states associated with Covid-19’s worst impacts? The Covid-19 pandemic has been called the “great equalizer.” And yet in an unfamiliar twist…

Editor’s Note: This appeared originally on Duke professor Carol Apollonio’s blog, ‘Chekhov’s Footprints.’ It is written to the Russian culture ministry. Thank you for notifying me that the Russian Ministry of Culture has awarded me a medal (“The Great Russian Writer F. M. Dostoevsky”). This is a great honor; I…

A recent DEA warning about deadly fentanyl-laced rainbow pills that look like candy is another reminder that overdoses are killing our kids at an accelerating rate. This is a national emergency — and few of us are even aware. Young people and their families need more information and intervention to…

In national public health emergencies like monkeypox, our sensitivities around not stigmatizing people can keep us from our goals. We don’t deliver helpful information or use language that doesn’t resonate with the intended audience. The result? We lose valuable time. And we don’t have time to waste. The…

There is a Black maternal and infant health crisis plaguing the United States of America. It’s so easy for us to passively consume this issue, be unphased or even numb because we see this problem on TV, a post on Instagram or in a news story. However, this is not…

The country is perched on the precipice of a financial healthcare disaster, and far too few Americans know it. Ominous forces are coalescing: more than 100 million Americans — including 41 percent of adults — have significant medical debt, and nearly 20 percent have debt in collections. …