“What’s happening with my son?” a woman on the other end of the phone asked me. I wasn’t sure what to say.  I was training to be a psychiatrist, and was treating him – a young man in his early 20s.  I had never met her, and sensed they had a strained relationship. But didn’t she, as...

We put on navy blue scrubs, plastic aprons, goggles, and gloves and walked into the anatomical dissection rooms for the first time.Three other first-year medical students and I gathered around our assigned table on either side of a black body bag. We unzipped the bag and then peeled away the whi...

 On a bright Sunday morning in New York’s Central Park, as October leaves bid a variegated farewell to green, nascent golds and auburns yielded for a few short hours to vibrant pink, the American Cancer Society held a fundraising walk for breast cancer.  The local TV news anchors were outfitted ...

Conventional wisdom: Making environmentally friendly changes is a luxury that most hospitals can’t afford. Evidence: Making environmentally friendly changes can save hospitals a lot of money – and save the U.S. health care system billions of dollars.

On November 15, the Department of Justice announced that BP Exploration and Production Inc. agreed to plead guilty to 11 counts of felony manslaughter, one count of felony obstruction of Congress, and violations of the Clean Water and Migratory Bird Treaty Acts, as a result of the explosion in the G...

 By now the story of Susan Reverby’s discovery of John Cutler’s papers is well known. In 2010, she revealed details of the Guatemala studies from the U. S. Public Health Service doctor’s files, triggering an avalanche of media attention.  President Obama apologized to the President of Guatem...

It’s no secret that community-based mental health and substance use treatment services are underfunded, but less widely known is the extent of the problem. Since 2009, the height of the Great Recession, state funding for these services has fallen by $4.35 billion. And yet the prevalence of behavio...

I teach a seminar on ethics in health care in the newly-launched Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program at Yale.  My students include advanced practice registered nurses (nurse practitioners), senior administrators, and health policymakers.  Because the typical DNP student is a working profe...

Some years ago I wrote a book on abortion that espoused women’s right to choose abortion and was later cited in Roe v. Wade. That should have made me popular with feminists, but it did not and for one reason: I also argued that it was an ethical choice and that not all abortions would necessa...

On Monday, New America Foundation in Washington, DC held a thought-provoking event, My Brain Made Me Do It, which explored the role of neuroscience in understanding human behavior, particularly that of criminals, and the extent to which such research can or should be used in the criminal justi...