President Trump is Ignoring America’s Trump Card in the Conflict with China

President Trump recently announced a series of harsh measures against China, including the suspension of entry of all graduate and post-graduate students into the United States.  I can understand the desire to protect American intellectual property by preventing students from learning skills and intellectual property and then returning to China and making use of them without royalties.  But a blanket ban on the entry of Chinese students ignores how the fields of medicine, science, and engineering really work and is likely to backfire spectacularly.

The Rule of Law is Dead in Medicine

The United States is a nation of laws, not of men's dictates.  The rule of law is what keeps (most) drivers from routinely running red lights, police officers from demanding bribes, and our civil servants and elected officials largely honest.  There of course will be violators of this code, as there are in any society, but nonetheless compared to many other nations in the US most citizens and state officials believe the laws are legitimate, and by and large obey them.  One of the most bitter criticisms of President Trump and proximate cause for his impeachment proceedings is that he is breaking down a critical part of the rule of law.  By using tools of state commonly felt to be apolitical (foreign policy, the justice department) to go after his political opponents; issuing executive orders that seem to punish certain religious or ethnic groups, thereby legitimizing white supremacy; and attacking institutions respected by all such as the FBI, intelligence agencies, and the judicial branch- he is accused of slowly diminishing respect for those institutions and the sense that the institutions of the state serve all citizens fairly and equally.  This then threatens to breakdown the trust that all Americans have in our nation, which is critical to its continued existence.

Governor Northam's Comments about Abortion, Explained, and a Proposal for Compromise

Democrats in Virgina made a massive own goal this week- and that was before Governor Northam, a renowned pediatric neurologist, was possibly found to have done blackface OR dressed up in a KKK outfit 30 years ago at a Halloween party.

Disclosing Conflicts of Interest on Twitter is Security Theater at its Finest

Conflicts of interest (COIs) have been in the news lately, with the resignations and public mea culpas of several prominent figures over undisclosed conflicts of interest in journal articles.  Memorial Sloan Kettering is one of the two top cancer hospitals in the United States: unequaled by anyone other than MD Anderson in it's advanced, cutting edge care. The Chief Medical Officer of that institution spectacularly resigned after failing to note millions of dollars in payments by pharmaceutical companies he had worked with in journal articles which he wrote.

Now I will disclose here that I am a Baylor College of Medicine General Surgery resident who will rotate at MD Anderson.

As their roles change, Pharmacists need new Regulations, Norms, and Freedom from Corporate Interests

Pharmacists play an essential role in the healthcare system today, one that is ever-expanding.  They check for drug interactions, watch for signs of opioid over-prescribing, and try to determine whether a drug for one condition prescribed by one doctor will negatively impact the patient because of another diagnosis the patient has.  In hospital units, their roles have become yet more complex- often serving on various quality committees, managing daily dosages of medications like warfarin and vancomycin, and more.  I rely upon them in the hospital daily- to catch mistakes, and to advise on drug dosages and choices.  Many in the community give flu vaccinations, and some are even trying to gain "provider" status under Medicare, allowing them bill directly for treating patients.  This has been accompanied by a drastic change in the preparation of the average pharmacist- where once it was a 5 year bachelor's degree, now it is a graduate degree- a change recent enough that as of 2014, over 60% of pharmacists practicing had trained under the old system.

CNN vs. the Mayo Clinic: Did an American Hospital Imprison a Patient?

In an astonishing story, CNN claims that the famed Mayo clinic imprisoned an adult patient there against her will.  In an unusual move, the patient's family signed a consent form for the hospital to respond without concern for HIPAA privacy protections, and even more unusually Mayo released a statement so scorching that it all but accused CNN of committing blood libel.  CNN stood by it's story and claimed multiple Mayo spokespeople were shown to have no grasp on the details of the case, and spent an inordinate amount of time accusing Mayo of significant shadiness with whether a meeting was "on-the-record".  But, as with so many problems in medicine, this situation too boils down to a failure to communicate on Mayo's part, and a failure to understand medicine on the part of CNN.

The strange saga of Dr. Eugene Gu- #Resistance hero to accused Rapist

To many active on social media the saga of Dr. Eugene Gu, from #Resistance figure to accused rapist, is a long and strange one that holds some lessons for many physicians in the social media age.