Viewpoints: Hospital Workers Need A Safer Environment; Opioid Crisis Could Benefit From Legal Weed

Modern Healthcare: Making Our Hospitals Safer - For Everyone
People who choose to work in healthcare often do so out of empathy and compassion for others. It’s a challenging irony that these caregivers, who are only trying to ease people’s pain and cure their ailments, are five times more likely to experience violence in the workplace than any other profession. (Steve Smoot, 8/9)

Scientific American: Cannabis Needs Rethinking As A Strategy In The Overdose Crisis 
The U.S. faces a devastating overdose epidemic, driven initially by pain pills and subsequently by heroin and the synthetic opioid fentanyl. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate there were more than 81,000 opioid-related overdose deaths last year alone. (Joao P. De Aquino and Gabriel P. A. Costa, 8/8)

The Atlantic: The Best Therapy For Our Anxiety Epidemic
To note that a mental-health crisis is hitting American adolescents and young adults is hardly news—data to that effect emerge almost every day. The latest confirmation, in April, comes from a survey that I was grateful to help develop: This major survey, sponsored by the Walton Family Foundation and fielded by Gallup, revealed that some 38 percent of respondents aged 12 to 26 had received a formal diagnosis of anxiety or depression. (Arthur C. Brooks, 8/8)

Stat: Why We Need More Works Of Fiction About Health Care And Medicine
The American medical system needs fiction because, as Albert Camus supposedly said, “Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” And those in health care, from hospital administrators to clinicians and technicians, need to hear the real truth about health care. For decades, a small group of physician and nurse writers has provided behind-the-scenes looks at the experiences of being a doctor, the lives saved, the ones lost, and how the profession has changed the way many people look at the world. (David Weill, 8/9)