Category Archives: Thinking Out Loud

Eating Soup with a Fork: Reshaping Global Health Care Delivery to Meet the Challenges of NCDs

In the lead up to the UN High-Level Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), there is been much discourse – and the rightfully so – on the need for greater public awareness of the threat NCDs, the framing of NCDs as … Continue reading

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From Diseases to Behaviors: A New Way of Looking at Health

What is the leading cause of death in the United States? Heart disease? Cancer? Smoking. Smoking? Yes, depending on how you ask the question. In the early 90s, McGinnis and Foege turned the age-old question of what people die of … Continue reading

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A Taste of Canada on Chicago’s South Side

This past September, a group of medical residents at my institution began seeing primary care patients at a free clinic down the street from our tertiary academic medical center (“hospital clinic”). Far from my expectations, the care we are able … Continue reading

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Giving Preventive Health Care A Name

It’s a scene that plays out thousands of times every day in doctors’ offices across the country—the moment the doctor shifts from addressing the concerns that brought the patient into clinic to when he or she attempts to make sure … Continue reading

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Forgetting to Counsel Patients About Their Chronic Diseases

The recently instituted 30-hour-shift “work restrictions” placed on medical residents have created a need for “dayfloat” services to safeguard potentially unsafe handoffs in patient care and help residents adhere to duty hour limits. The past two weeks I’ve been the dayfloat … Continue reading

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