Senator Cassidy cast the deciding vote to confirm RFKJr. As a physician he should be ashamed. He seems to have some regrets now

We CANNOT give up on sharing information on how people can access COVID-19 vaccines in the coming months. Found this article helpful and hope others do too. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/who-is-eligible-for-the-covid-vaccine-in-2025-and-how-to-get-it/

I keep seeing a lot of people discussing what's going on at the CDC. Everybody keeps praising the scathing letters from resigned officials and the staff walk out. THIS. IS. WHAT. THEY. WANT. They want people willing to resist to quit. They want people not working at the CDC. What they don't tend to have the power to deal with is everyday acts of resistance. James Scott has written some books on this and while the context is much different, I'm sure some of the smartest people in the world could come together to figure out similar strategies. Making dictators as ineffectual as possible is THE ONLY STRATEGY we have right now. Quitting and walking out does nothing. You all understand your offices better than anybody in Washington, use that to your advantage and slow these mofos down.

To be a public health nurse is in many ways like being a keeper of bees. You learn a deep respect for PPE—the veil, the gloves, the barrier between your soft skin and the sting. Not out of fear, but reverence. Protection is not distance; it is what allows you to step close enough to serve. You see that the hive shapes the health of each bee. The strength of the whole flows into the one—its protection, its nourishment, its rhythm. When the hive thrives, each bee carries that vitality; when the hive falters, even the strongest cannot stand apart. The community is not background but lifeblood, woven into every wingbeat. You practice the art of building trust and staying calm. The bees know your heartbeat; patients feel your steadiness. A frantic hand provokes, but a steady one soothes. In both fields, calm is not the absence of danger but the presence of respect. In maternal health, you stand among women whose power is both fierce and tender. You witness the fire that brings life forth, and the gentleness that cradles it after. Their strength teaches you that resilience is not hard stone but living flame—nurturing, protective, unyielding when called. And always, there is the connection to nature—cruel and astonishing, fragile and fierce. Life cycles unfold before your eyes: birth, loss, resilience. Honey and sting, grief and sweetness. To nurse and to tend is to accept that beauty and brutality share the same field. So you rise each day, veil or mask in place, stepping into the hum of the world’s need—a keeper of bees, a keeper of health.

I just need to vent about something that hit me hard after another dinner with extended family. I’ve always felt like the black sheep in my family, not because of who I am, but because of what I value. I started working for a medical school 3 years ago and I teach family centered care, health policy, how to advocate, and sexuality topics all within in the lens of disability. This drove me to pursue my MPH. I love my work. I love my degree. I just had my first guest lecture at an Ivy League for a workshop I’m developing all before I even graduate with my masters. I have had some of the greatest highs of my career and I can’t even celebrate them because my family can’t look past their discomfort. No one ever asks me about how work is or what I’m learning, or what’s going on in my life outside my relationship or how I look. My degree is “controversial” and my work is “political”. Yet still I sit there quietly, waiting for my turn, waiting for someone to show curiosity about me… but it never comes. As the youngest, I’ve spent years thinking eventually they’d see me, that my moment would come. But I’m realizing maybe it never will. We live in a different world now. I don’t want applause or praise. I just want to be considered, to be asked, to feel like I belong in my own family. And it stings to realize that in their eyes, my existence feels less comfortable to engage with than others’ all because after covid I chose to run towards the chaos not from it…

Seems to me that Doctors have ceded a lot of space to management and administration for far too long. I can appreciate that clinical duties are paramount. However, several decisions that directly and indirectly impact patient care plans, safety, and performance get taken many a time without the doctors being adequately involved or designing them. It seems to me that hospital administrators prefer keeping their doctors at the periphery, especially when it comes to economics.

Most Doctors, privately and in smaller groups, continue to rue and helplessly grumble over their almost complete loss of franchise and agency within the hospital system. Unlike in the past, when it was just the doctor and the patient in a “parent-child” relationship, healthcare systems are now incredibly complex. Hospitals are heavily indebted to banks, shareholders, PE, increasingly powerful regulators, and litigious “consumerist” patients.

There is also a growing trend towards privatization of healthcare in emerging economies. In markets like India, almost 70% of all care is in the private sector. Even in countries like China, where the state is pervasive, over the last decade, the share of private hospitals has increased from 10-12% to about 40-45%. The USA has a strong network of private hospitals. Fee-for-service payment mechanisms continue to be dominant and contribute close to 70% of the healthcare provided in the USA. In a largely private system, economics will always be front and center. 

But the balance between economics and medicine is a gentle and delicate one. A balance that can only be maintained with alignment and mutual coordination. The risk to doctors is when “good medicine” cedes too much space to “good economics.”

Doctors have no choice but to “grab the bull by the horns” to find the sweet spot where “good compromises” between good medicine and good economics can peacefully co-exist. The Covid pandemic demonstrated to us that doctors must be at the forefront of designing and delivering care. There is nothing that is non-medical about a hospital enterprise.

We need our Doctors in the Boardrooms as much as in the Procedure/Operating Rooms. 

Views ?

Multiple senior officials at the CDC have resigned, claiming the agency’s decision-making is being politicized. This raises serious alarms:

What does this do to public trust in health guidance?

Could vaccine campaigns or future disease response be compromised?

Is leadership failing us at a critical time?

We just published a 10-minute exposé unpacking the timeline, who's involved, and the potential fallout for millions of Americans.

Watch here (and weigh in with your take):

https://youtu.be/byDdoLWxlBM

Question for you all: Does this signal the end of trust in federal health institutions or is it a chance to rebuild with better oversight?

Hello,

I wrote this for Healthcare workers because you all have been going through so much recently, especially relating to vaccines. I can’t sing but thought you might appreciate some words of appreciation and music seems like a way to connect. Regardless what you decide to do next, know that the work you’ve already done has made a difference and that many people see you. It’s not much, but I hope this can offer some measure of appreciation for all you’ve done.

Vaccinate Me (Parody of “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepson)

My symptoms went clinical Blood cells in several vials Worried about survival But now I’m a-okay

It’s in a swabbed petri dish Measles and mumps in a twist Immunocompromised-ish But now it’s in my face (AAAAH!)

Fido’s salivating Bit knees, hydrophobing Mad eyes, spit is foaming Where to vaccinate for rabies?

Hey, metric units Our techs so savvy Wear gloves of rubber And vaccinate me!

All natural might succeed, maybe. Goggles for cover Oh, doctors, save me.

Health? It just sounds good Those attackers faze me Bacterial bummers Thank anti-bodies!

And all the viral loads Keep on shedding But here's my blood count So call me, later…

I put my pneumococcal On calendar schedule Plus a Meningococcal Grad school, I’m on my way

Shun Polio and Shingles After Bill Gate’s great deal I wasn’t sure they’d repeal that Blueprint on our tray

Your sanitation Rotavirus sowing Cholera is growing Won’t you try Vaxchora, baby?

Hey, a mosquito So don’t be lazy For yellow fever YF-Vax, maybe?

So therapeutic All pharmacies But I’ll take Pfizer So jab me, band me.

Hib, inflamed tissue Pneumonia frenzy Meningitis numbs me- Get droplets off me!

Yet swollen lymph nodes, Rashes, bleeding And miscarriage are Rubella freebies

Before you gave us longer lives Covid was so sad TB was so bad We need you so, so bad

Before your butterfly shaped-knifes Plague masks were so rad Remember those rats We tip-toed so, so bad

The future looked bright Through R&D but if your funding Is drying, lately

Cause, we forget flus As distant memories In aging members Of human families

Belief in Corduroy Might not change things But here what matters– So lawyers, capeesh?--

Eradicated smallpox’s strife Nations were so glad Nations were so glad Nations were so, so glad

Because you came into my life I hug my sick dad And you should know that

So vaccinate me!

———-

P.S. If you made it this far, thank you for reading. Warm wishes your way.