A woman dies every minute of heart disease in America. Yet the stereotypes about heart disease tend to suggest it is something that only affects men.
Think back to the last time you saw a heart disease-related commercial in a glossy magazine. It featured a white man in his 60s, right? It’s not a coincidence. After all, older men still run the country, when you look at the numbers in Congress.
As a physician, when a patient comes to me with an issue or illness that can be treated or even cured, my priority is to make sure they receive the correct and most effective treatment or medication.
Unfortunately, I am often forced to include another consideration in what I prescribe: a patient’s ability to afford the medication.
Health systems must acknowledge racism’s role in patient harm and medical errors.
That starts with more systematically collecting race, ethnicity and other data on both patient health and patient safety — which, incredibly, is not required today.
I recently introduced Senate Bill 387 to help teachers and school-based staff receive training on how to recognize the signs of a mental health crisis.
Although teachers and school-based staff are not trained mental health professionals, they are in a unique position to support youth who need help. By equipping teachers with the training needed to recognize the signs of someone experiencing a mental health or substance use challenge, we’ll help ensure students don’t slip through the cracks.
As a psychiatrist, I regularly see patients with severe, life-threatening addictions to digital content, including social media.
If we hope to reverse the current trends afflicting our children, we must hold the large, multi-billion-dollar companies responsible for the part they play in creating highly addictive products.
Community health workers and promotoras are stepping in more to help vulnerable populations navigate lifesaving services, and access to them is now a Medical benefit.
But without proactive outreach to Medi-Cal-eligible Californians about the availability of promotoras, there is great risk that we will not reach the very people who need them most.
Paid Family Leave and State Disability Insurance are supposed to prevent low-income Californians from falling into poverty or homelessness when they need to take time off work.
But the program is largely an empty promise for these patients because the benefits replace only 60 percent of income. Two of my patients are among the many Californians caught in this trap.
At the California Alliance, we hear story after story of foster youth housed in county welfare offices and hotels because there are not enough placements for them in the child welfare system.
It horrifies us to think that these youth, many of whom were abused or severely neglected, are now having to live in unofficial shelters while they wait to be placed with a foster family.
It’s no secret that the nation is suffering from a mental health crisis. At the same time, we have a vast shortage of therapists.
As an administrator at a mental health practice in the Central Valley, I know firsthand how unnecessarily challenging it can be to find qualified professionals to meet the demand.
In 2013, my son Ram spontaneously developed a condition called selective mutism, a childhood anxiety disorder. After three months of searching, I finally found a therapist familiar with the condition. My husband and I felt so relieved — until we found out she doesn’t take insurance.
It turns out, this scenario is common. Health insurance — whether private or through California’s Medi-Cal program — doesn’t pay what many psychologists request for their services.