By Leah Pierson
Medical students spend a lot of time learning about conditions they will likely never treat. This weak relationship between what students are taught and what they will treat has negative implications for patient care.
Category: Scientific Evidence
Ethics Education in U.S. Medical Schools’ Curricula
By Leah Pierson
I recently argued that we need to evaluate medical school ethics curricula. Here, I explore how ethics courses became a key component of medical education and what we do know about them. Read More
Citational Racism: How Leading Medical Journals Reproduce Segregation in American Medical Knowledge
By Gwendolynne Reid, Cherice Escobar Jones, and Mya Poe
Biases in scholarly citations against scholars of color promote racial inequality, stifle intellectual analysis, and can harm patients and communities.
While the lack of citations to scholars of color in medical journals may be due to carelessness, ignorance, or structural impediments, in some cases it is due to reckless neglect.
Our study demonstrates that the American Medical Association (AMA) has failed to promote greater racial inclusion in its flagship publication, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), despite an explicit pledge to do so.
It’s Time for the Federal Government to Get Back to Protecting the Nation Against COVID-19
By Jennifer S. Bard
Over the past two years, the Supreme Court has shown unprecedented hostility to efforts by both state and federal government to stop the spread of what every day turns out to be an even more deadly pandemic.
These decisions are devastating, and likely signal a continued attack on government authority, but they are not a reason to give up.
The federal government can still use its vast resources to slow the spread and continued mutation of the virus, by telling people what it knows of the danger, and what it knows about how to mitigate it.
Misleading, Coercive Language in Bills Barring Trans Youth Access to Gender Affirming Care
By Arisa R. Marshall
On Friday, a federal judge temporarily enjoined part of a new Alabama law that would make it a felony for physicians to provide gender-affirming care to trans youth. The law had been in effect for less than a week.
This is only the most recent development relating to a raft of anti-trans legislation sweeping the country. More than twenty bills that would impose life-changing healthcare restrictions on transgender children have been introduced in statehouses nationwide over the past two years, threatening the wellbeing of transgender youth and communities. Most of these bills aim to entirely ban gender-affirming medical care for minors, including surgeries, prescription puberty blockers, and hormone replacement therapies.
These laws are detrimental to the mental, physical, and social health of children. They are dismissive of the experiences of transgender children and teenagers, misleading, and manipulative.
How to Construct Better Organ Donation Policy and Achieve Health Equity
By James R. Jolin
The United States is facing an organ donation crisis, with massive gaps between supply and demand.
Per estimates from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), over 106,000 Americans are currently awaiting this life-saving medical treatment. Further, the burden of this shortage falls unequally: in 2020, while approximately 48% of white patients in need of transplants received an organ, only 27% of Black patients secured one.
The stakes are too high to allow the organ donation crisis to proceed in the U.S. without bold intervention. But with many policy options on the table, unresolved ethical concerns, and a patchwork of organ donation laws across the country, the proper path forward is not immediately clear.
Small Doses of Psychedelics for Cluster Headaches
By Bob Wold
One understudied condition for which small doses of psychedelic substances such as psilocybin may be beneficial is cluster headache.
As founder and executive director of the advocacy group Clusterbusters, I have seen firsthand, as a patient and an activist, that, despite its modest name, cluster is far from “just” a headache. It is a chronic pain condition that lasts “on” and “off” for months or years, often with no hint as to its origin. Estimates suggest that one in 1,000 people – which equates to over 332,000 Americans – suffer from cluster headache.
Findings from the Microdose.me Study: A Large Scale Observational Study of Psychedelic Microdosing
By Joseph Rootman
Public uptake of psychedelic microdosing has outpaced research on the practice, which has left gaps in our understanding. In order to help fill some of these gaps in the scientific literature, our clinical psychology research team at the University of British Columbia has launched the Microdose.me study along with a team of international researchers and partners. This symposium contribution provides an overview of our findings to date, and offers suggestions for future microdosing research.
Safety First: Potential Heart Health Risks of Microdosing
By Kelan Thomas
Given the current evidence for psychedelic “microdosing,” the risks may outweigh the benefits for many people.
This is because there is compelling theoretical evidence to suggest prolonged and repeated microdosing may cause valvular heart disease (VHD), and only weak survey evidence that it provides the benefits microdosers typically seek, such as enhanced cognition, or relief from depression and anxiety.
Is Microdosing Just Placebo?
By Vince Polito
People who microdose psychedelics claim that it provides a very wide range of benefits, from improvements in mood, to reduced substance use, to cognitive enhancement.
But is microdosing really delivering all of those benefits? Or is it just a placebo effect?