Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
What If The Doctor Is The One Who Refuses To Wear A Mask?
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Even Some Doctors Won’t Wear Masks In A Pandemic, Patients Complain
In Georgia and across the country, patients have filed complaints with state licensing boards accusing doctors and their staffers of failing to wear face masks, making people with medical degrees an unlikely subgroup of Americans bucking the CDC’s safety recommendations. (Edwards, 10/20)
WBUR: Health Care Workers Ask Therapist: 'Why Aren't More People Taking This Seriously?'
New cases of coronavirus in the U.S. are climbing, and may hit peaks rivaling the summer surge. Cases are exploding in the upper Midwest and around the Great Lakes, with intensive care units approaching capacity and field hospitals being set up for overflow patients. Health care workers in the Midwest now face some of the same nightmarish scenarios that their colleagues in New York City saw this spring. (Shapiro and Pao, 10/20)
KHN: ‘All You Want Is To Be Believed’: The Impacts Of Unconscious Bias In Health Care
In mid-March, Karla Monterroso flew home to Alameda, California, after a hiking trip in Utah’s Zion National Park. Four days later, she began to develop a bad, dry cough. Her lungs felt sticky. The fevers that persisted for the next nine weeks grew so high — 100.4, 101.2, 101.7, 102.3 — that, on the worst night, she was in the shower on all fours, ice-cold water running down her back, willing her temperature to go down. ... But what happened in the emergency room at Alameda Hospital only confirmed her worst fears. (Dembosky, 10/21)
