Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
There Are Some Legal Options In Place For Doctors Who Have Been Assaulted By Patients. But Many Struggle With Decision To Press Charges.
The Washington Post: What Should A Doctor Do When A Patient Gets Violent Or Assaults Them?
Violence from patients is a big problem in U.S. health care. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, health-care and social assistance workers experience violent injuries that require days away from work at four times the rate of workers in the broader private sector. Assaults from patients can be particularly prevalent in high-risk settings, such as psychiatric units and emergency departments. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that psychiatric aides and technicians endure workplace violence at a rate 69 times greater than the national average. In a 2018 poll of more than 3,500 emergency physicians, 47 percent reported having been physically assaulted at work and 71 percent said they had witnessed another assault. After an assault from a patient, health-care workers face a complicated question: Should they press charges? (Morris, 11/18)
NPR: Migrant Kids Reuniting With Parents In The U.S. Need Emotional Support To Thrive
For nearly a month, the two sisters — then ages 17 and 12 — traveled by road from their home in El Salvador to the southern border of the United States. They had no parent or relatives with them on that difficult journey in the fall of 2016 — just a group of strangers and their smugglers. Ericka and her younger sister Angeles started out in multiple cars, Ericka remembers. "In Mexico, it was buses. And we changed buses very often." (Chatterjee, 11/17)
Stat: Verily Shelves Project To Create Glucose-Sensing Contact Lens
Verily, the life sciences-focused Google offshoot, has shelved the ambitious project to develop a glucose-sensing contact lens that inspired its founding. In a blog post on Friday, Verily said it will put “on hold” its work on the contacts, which had been envisioned as a way to relieve people with diabetes of the need for needle sticks to test their blood sugar. The project was begun almost five years ago by Google — before the launch of Verily. Verily began a collaboration in 2014 with partner Alcon, a division of Novartis, to develop the lens. (Robbins, 11/16)
The New York Times: Why Standing Desks Are Overrated
We know that physical activity is good for us, and that being sedentary is not. Some have extrapolated this to mean that sitting, in general, is something to be avoided, even at work. Perhaps as a result, standing desks have become trendy and are promoted by some health officials as well as some countries. Research, however, suggests that warnings about sitting at work are overblown, and that standing desks are overrated as a way to improve health. (Carroll, 11/19)
The New York Times: The Case Against Appendectomies
Pity the poor appendix, a 2- to 4-inch-long wormlike pouch dangling from the head of the cecum, where the large and small intestines meet. For most of its medical history — anatomists have known about it for well over five centuries — it was maligned as a mysterious, vestigial and seemingly useless organ that could only cause trouble if left to its own devices. (Brody, 11/19)
The Washington Post: She Kept Having Nose Bleeds, And So Did Her Kids. The Reason Was Terrifying.
The night the nosebleed started, Zina Martinez, seven months pregnant with her second child, was sitting in the living room of her Las Vegas home, eating a bowl of ice cream. Martinez, 22, was used to nosebleeds. She’d had them nearly every day since she was 10, an annoying occurrence doctors had repeatedly dismissed as insignificant — a probable result of the bone-dry desert air. (Boodman, 11/17)
The Washington Post: Easy Workouts Can Get You Started On Meeting New Guidelines
It’s that time again. The Department of Health and Human Services has released a new edition of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. That sound you hear is Americans collectively sighing. Let’s be honest: Physical activity guidelines can be tough. As behavioral scientists with expertise in exercise motivation, we will be the first to admit that maintaining a physically active lifestyle isn’t easy. This is what we do, and we don’t even always hit the goal. Life is messy and often gets in the way of even the best intentions. Let’s take a deep breath, unwrap these new guidelines and talk strategy. (Conroy and Pagoto, 11/17)
Kaiser Health News: Gun Control Vs. Mental Health Care: Debate After Mass Shootings Obscures Murky Reality
After the recent mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, Calif., in which 11 people were killed at a country music bar, President Donald Trump struck a familiar refrain: “It’s a mental health problem,” he said of the gunman, Ian David Long. “He was a very sick puppy.” Similarly, after a school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 students and staff members in February, Trump tweeted that there were “so many signs that the shooter was mentally disturbed.” (Waters, 11/19)
