Article
Smoking Cigarettes (My Circumstances Made Me Do It)
Published Jun 12, 2020Featured Image For Smoking Cigarettes (My Circumstances Made Me Do It)
Rates of cigarette smoking have dropped substantially in the US over the past few decades. But lots of Americans still smoke, and the burden of tobacco-related illness does not fall evenly across our population. That is tragic under normal circumstances, with tobacco use leading to heart attacks, strokes, cancers, and emphysema, to name but a […]
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Duke Alumni Magazine Feature: Sick to Debt
Published May 15, 2020Featured Image For Duke Alumni Magazine Feature: Sick to Debt
The Duke Alumni Magazine just published a Q & A about my new book, Sick to Debt. Here was the picture accompanying that article. Y’all agree that this should have been the “author photo” on the back cover? Link to the Q & A  
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Sick to Debt Now Available as Audio Book
Published May 12, 2020Featured Image For Sick to Debt Now Available as Audio Book
I’m excited to announce that my book is now available through Audible, to accompany you on all those long commutes you are no longer making to your job every day. Sigh…  But seriously, I think the topic of this book is more relevant than ever, and hope that having another way to “read” Sick to […]
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Antibody Tests Could Offer A False Sense of Security
Published May 08, 2020Featured Image For Antibody Tests Could Offer A False Sense of Security
A lot of hope on reopening businesses and returning to work in the U.S. hinges on COVID-19 testing and the development of treatments and a vaccine. But as the country ramps up antibody testing – analyzing blood samples for signs someone has been exposed to or infected with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 – physician […]
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This Is Not the Time to Worry About Paying for the Medical Care You Need
Published Apr 06, 2020Featured Image For This Is Not the Time to Worry About Paying for the Medical Care You Need
Here is a nice article by Dennis Thompson at HealthDay about the challenges people are going to face paying for medical care, especially if they’ve lost or been laid off from their jobs. I chime in at the end URGING people not to worry about money right now if they are sick. Get the care […]
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Expert: NC better positioned than other states to respond to pandemic (WRAL)
Published Apr 03, 2020Featured Image For Expert: NC better positioned than other states to respond to pandemic (WRAL)
The slow growth in coronavirus cases in North Carolina relative to New York and some other states puts North Carolina in better position to respond to the pandemic, according to a Duke University professor. Economist Mark McClellan, the director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, was U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner during the […]
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US government’s WWII mobilization on penicillin is a road map to fighting the coronavirus (USA Today)
Published Mar 31, 2020Featured Image For US government’s WWII mobilization on penicillin is a road map to fighting the coronavirus (USA Today)
On March 14, 1942, an American soldier with bacteria coursing through his bloodstream was treated with penicillin, a new wonder drug that saved his life. That single treatment exhausted half the nation’s supply of the drug. Two years later, as U.S. troops prepared to launch the D-Day invasion, America had more than 2 million doses of the drugready […]
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Here’s Why Good Food & Nutrition Is Essential For Health
Published Mar 20, 2020Featured Image For Here’s Why Good Food & Nutrition Is Essential For Health
The patient’s health was suffering because he couldn’t afford one of the cheapest, most effective medicines in the marketplace. He was coming back and forth to the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Medical Center for his care. His physician, an internal medicine trainee at the University of Michigan, tried everything in her power to help the […]
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