Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: A Son's Mental Illness; Medicare And Nursing Homes; Revamping The MCAT
The Los Angeles Times: The Nightmare Outcome Of A Son’s Mental Illness
It was obvious to Cynthia that her son was a danger. She and Anthony had sought help from California's medical, legal and law enforcement institutions. But they had found only temporary relief, and were frustrated by the piecemeal and often impenetrable nature of the state's mental health system. (Abby Sewell, 4/13)
The Associated Press: Baseball Offering More Mental Health Support To Players
Long gone are the days when mental health was a taboo subject in major league locker rooms, and the days of a lone sports psychologist even appear to be waning. While individual players have sought help with the mental side of the game for years, teams are responding to the changing attitudes by offering more assistance to their players in the area. (Cohen, 4/10)
The New York Times: In Race for Medicare Dollars, Nursing Home Care May Lag
Promises of “decadent” hot baths on demand, putting greens and gurgling waterfalls to calm the mind: These luxurious touches rarely conjure images of a stay in a nursing home. But in a cutthroat race for Medicare dollars, nursing homes are turning to amenities like those to lure patients who are leaving a hospital and need short-term rehabilitation after an injury or illness, rather than long-term care at the end of life. (Katie Thomas, 4/14)
The Atlantic: Genes Don't Cause Racial-Health Disparities, Society Does
It is almost universally agreed that race is a social construct. In 2005, only two years after the sequencing of the human genome, the editors of Nature Biotechnology put it like this: “Pooling people in race silos is akin to zoologists grouping raccoons, tigers, and okapis on the basis that they are all stripey.” Perhaps, then, the better question is: Why do we continue to search for a connection between race and genetics to explain health disparities? (Jason Silverstein, 4/13)
Bloomberg: How Psychiatrists Are Failing The Patients Who Need Them Most
The profession of psychiatry didn’t have a place for a patient like Derek Ward in the months before he brutally murdered his mother and then killed himself. Voices had crowded the 35-year-old’s head. For months, his mother Pat Ward, a well-respected English professor, had been frantically trying to get him an appointment with a psychiatrist. Yet dozens of doctors said they either didn’t take his insurance or wouldn’t see patients with Derek’s complex condition. (Shannon Pettypiece, 4/10)
The Wall Street Journal: Medical-College Entrance Exam Gets An Overhaul
The essay section is out and sociology is in, and test-takers will need to be as familiar with psychology terms like “reciprocal determinism” as they are with organic chemistry. The 8,200 aspiring doctors expected to take the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT, this week will find a very different exam than their predecessors took. (Melinda Beck, 4/15)
Pacific Standard: 106 Cases And Counting
Thirty years to the month after a 13-year-old boy named Ryan White, born in Kokomo, Indiana, was diagnosed with HIV in December 1984, an outbreak of HIV was reported in White’s home state. White, infected with the HIV virus through transfusion with contaminated blood, became a symbol in the 1980s of how everyone was vulnerable to this virus and how a society can respond to such challenges. (Lynn Fiellin, 4/14)
