Archive

Perspectives in Primary Care features writing from practitioners, activists, and community members representing organizations, practices, and institutions across the United States and around the world.

COVID-19 Magnifies Existing Inequities Faced by Transgender and Gender-Expansive Communities

As COVID-19 devastates lives throughout the world, the inequities experienced by transgender and gender-diverse individuals have become further illuminated. The ...

COVID: He Didn’t Have to Die

He’s young. Just 49 years old. A long life ahead of him. He was hospitalized a week ago and doing okay initially on the medical floor. After his saturations were consistently in the 80s on the highest level of supplemental oxygen, he needed to be intubated. We asked him if he wanted to call his family before intubation, just like we do with all our COVID patients… because we know it might be the last time. He declined, said he’s not in touch with his family and has no friends to call. He was adamant that he didn’t want his estranged parents or brother contacted for updates while ...

Seeing the Water: Seven Values Targets for Anti-Racism Action

You know the old saying, “It’s hard for a fish to see the water in which it swims?” That’s true! And in the United States, we are all swimming through a polluted ocean. More of us are starting to see the icebergs and reefs that structure our watery landscape, in part because we are starting to understand that the wreckage that they cause is not “natural.” But we have been slower to see the water. And we need to see both, because it is the very murkiness of this water in which we swim that makes it hard for us to see the structures that harm and divide us. We swim in an ...

Investment & Innovation in Primary Care: An Update and Call to Action

We’ve all seen the headlines—primary care practices are in trouble: “America’s looming primary care crisis,” “Fewer than 10% of primary care practices have stabilized operations amid COVID-19 pandemic,” and “

LGBTQ Youth Face Unique Challenges Amidst COVID-19

The physical toll of the COVID-19 pandemic is tangible, though its impact on mental health is just starting to be understood—and this includes the mental health impact on LGBTQ youth. At baseline, LGBTQ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide compared ...

COVID-19 & the Political Determinants of Health

From the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was clear that America’s deep-rooted inequities would play a central, and likely devastating, role in the magnitude and distribution of the burden of disease. In early March, former New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett and I outlined these inequities and called for a human rights-based response focused on ...

My Moral Responsibility as a Physician: Addressing the Political Determinants of Health

A while back I was invited to attend a panel discussion on primary care at an area medical school. For 45 minutes the other two primary care doctors and I shared a lighthearted conversation about why we love primary care, interspersing various plugs for why the students should consider the field for themselves. After several stories about the satisfaction we derive from our jobs and the joys in the relationships we form with our patients, a student raised their hand to ask a question about how the current political climate was affecting our practice. “I’ll take this ...

Food Insecurity… Emerging Again from the Shadows of COVID-19

On first glance, COVID-19 appeared to be the “great equalizer,” particularly with reports of celebrities and world leaders infected and succumbing to the unruly virus. It seemed that income, race, ethnicity, and location were no longer protective factors. On second glance, though, we find COVID-19 is actually the “great magnifier.” It has shed light on the

COVID-19 Data Reporting Redirected from CDC to HHS

Autumn may be around the corner, but a reprieve from ever-increasing COVID-19 death tolls and skyrocketing case rates in the United States is not. In a time of national emergency, the White House has announced that hospitals should bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to instead report data to the Department of Health and Human ...

The Impacts of Racism on the Health of our Nation

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has a legacy of being outspoken on issues that matter to our patients and the communities in which our members serve. We advocate loudly for our most marginalized patients, including those who are transgender, those with limited English proficiency, those with disabilities and, of course, people of color. It is in that spirit we issued a