Shortly after Healing Across the Divides began its work, the Israeli army had placed boulders at the entrance to Sinjil—a Palestinian town in the central West Bank—blocking it off from the outside world. A local Palestinian woman contacted me, persistently urging me to “tell President Bush to end the occupation.” And doing everything possible within my realm of control, I ...

Basic epidemiological terminology has steadily crept into everyday jargon as the COVID-19 pandemic has been raging globally. “Quarantine,” “physical distancing,” “isolation,” “PCR testing,” “rapid testing”—all words that may have otherwise come from a sci-fi movie are now among the many terms dropped in conversations as friends, family members, and ...

With the COVID-19 pandemic raging in the United States, rural Americans find themselves trapped in a whirlwind of misinformation and distrust as they seek answers for questions like the following: “Is the pandemic really as bad as the media portrays?”

Merv is my 94-year-old patient living in Washington, D.C. in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, attempting to continue his treatments for diabetes, hypertension, and leukemia. He’s at significantly increased risk for severe COVID infection, though fortunately, due to Medicare’s

After working the night shift, Mandy, now five months pregnant, travels close to two hours on public transportation to make it to her prenatal appointments. The day before, I send her a text message with a reminder and ask whether she plans to get the gumbo special of the day or a grilled cheese with tomato from the hospital’s surprisingly delicious cafeteria. As a first-year medical student, I am participating in a program that trains me to provide additional support to a pregnant patient who I’m partnered ...

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States is finally experiencing a cultural shift in consciousness and awareness of racial disparities. And meanwhile, the maternal health community’s reckoning with racism is accelerating. Black women in the United States die from pregnancy-related complications at

In 1965, Harvard Medical School (HMS) had a thriving Family Medicine & Primary Care Residency—a visionary program that was strongly rooted in serving the vulnerable populations surrounding the HMS campus. Resident physicians trained to provide outpatient primary care across the life spectrum, working in partnership with Boston Children’s Hospital, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, and Boston Lying-In Hospital (the latter two of which are Brigham & Women’s predecessor institutions). ...

On March 18, 2020, Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) opened its COVID-19 outpatient clinic (now referred to as the acute care clinic), with the goal to triage and provide care for patients with respiratory symptoms, ultimately reducing strain on our local emergency departments. CHA is an academic community healthcare system based in the Boston area and serves ...

If you ask a patient to describe their experience finding a therapist or psychiatrist in the community, don’t be surprised if ‘expensive,’ ‘difficult,’ and ‘discouraging’ are some of the first words that come to mind. The decades-long separation of mental healthcare from physical health has left patients and clinicians alike with serious challenges navigating options for care. And the cost has been much more than just inconvenience—our poorly integrated system is responsible for