Primary care is the foundation for population health and well-being. Unfortunately, our efforts to address the coronavirus pandemic have exposed many critical structural deficiencies in our country’s health care system, most notably the lack of investment in primary care. Equal access and equitable care While the disparate impact of the coronavirus on

Access to comprehensive primary care has long been a challenge in the United States, and the economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will have far reaching implications on our healthcare system. Sixty percent of Americans have at least one chronic condition, and many patients have complex needs that require additional coordination, time and resources than what traditional models of care ...

I heard the commotion from my “captain’s chair,” the seat for the lead clinician at our respiratory clinic. The medical assistants, gloved and masked, hurriedly pushed the wheelchair past my door and into the “emergency” exam room, and I glimpsed a tiny hunched figure in the chair, all dressed in black, with her face grayish brown. “Oxygen saturation 84, we’re calling EMS,” the medical assistant called out, as a nurse walked swiftly into the room to apply oxygen. A clinician jogged over to the personal protective equipment (PPE) room to don her full armor before heading to the patient’s ...

Today, I am saving lives slowly. This is less satisfying than the days I am in full personal protective equipment (PPE) for hours in our new urgent care respiratory isolation unit. The unit was converted over the course of a weekend in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic from what used to be our billing department, now with new linoleum and exam beds where carpet and desks used to be. In the isolation unit, it is easy to feel I am doing something vital, instead of this strange new disconnect of seeing my patients on the 3x5 inch screen of my cellphone, struggling to connect both ...

The 1973 Roe v. Wade United States (US) Supreme Court case resulted in the historic decision that the US Constitution protects a person’s liberty to choose to have an abortion in private consultation with one’s clinician. Since that time patients and medical providers have had to continue to fight for access to abortion throughout this country. In the years since Roe v. Wade, over 1,000 abortion ...

We know that many barriers to accessing safe, equitable, and effective contraception exist at individual, institutional, and societal levels. These include things such as lack of insurance, inability to get a timely appointment, difficulty taking time off from work or childcare, and required (but not evidence-based) pelvic exams or other pre-requisites. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic is heightening many of these existing ...

We are living in an unprecedented time in which an unimaginable global pandemic has upended our way of life. Our current public health crisis is the kind of dramatic disruption that worries many climate advocates as our planet continues to warm. Climate change has and will continue to increase the frequency of natural disasters, the spread of infectious diseases and displacement for people around the world. The United Nations has made clear in their Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2018

While knowledge of COVID-19 transmission and its clinical manifestations is rapidly expanding, many questions remain unanswered regarding the effects of this pandemic on children. Research suggests that most children develop mild illness with COVID, and the development of severe disease is generally limited to infants and patients with pre-existing medical conditions (e.g. cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease, immunosuppression). ...

Health care workers, including residents, have stepped into the breach of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they have done so at great personal cost. We know that ICU physicians, emergency room physicians, nurses, and nursing home health aides have died in unprecedented numbers. At least one surgical resident is known to have died from COVID-19, and it is likely there are others as well. We also know that caring for patients with COVID-19 creates fear and anxiety among health care workers, leading to both burnout and disability, and a demand for hazard pay. And we know that approximately