First Opinion Archives

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The number of nursing homes has flatlined and could shrink by 20 percent by 2021, even as the percentage of Americans over age 65 continues to grow.

Nursing homes fade even as baby boomers age

By Betsy Rust

Eros Dervishi for STAT

Greg Peverill-Conti Seth Mnookin

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The medical community recognizes that addicts suffer from diseases, not from failures of will or character. Still, many had harsh words for the writer telling about his experience at a…

‘You are a coward’: Hate and misperceptions about substance abuse are broader than I thought

By Seth Mnookin

Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe

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After decades of focusing on treating pain, the medical community now needs to balance that with addiction prevention, treatment, and recovery management.

Hospital’s new opioid policy addresses gap highlighted by ex-addict’s harrowing odyssey

By Sarah E. Wakeman and Eric M. Weil

Jeff Chiu/AP Patient relations representative Elena Griffing smiles while walking in the lobby at…

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In hospitals' quests to improve patient satisfaction scores, engaging all employees to offer comfort, support, compassion, and kindness is a good strategy.

How can hospitals improve patient satisfaction? By engaging their employees

By Jim Hemmer

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Physicians should recognize the desperate situation some patients are in. Don't give up on patients — that should be part of the Hippocratic oath.

An alternative to the Hippocratic oath: ‘to not give up on patients’

By Juliet Preston

Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images

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The FDA's policy banning gay men from donating blood if they have been sexually active in the last 12 months is outdated and discriminatory.

We are not viruses: Don’t limit gay men from donating blood

By Benjamin Mazer

Massachusetts General Hospital Dr. Henry Knowles Beecher wrote a scathing indictment of the ethics of…

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Dr. Henry Knowles Beecher's potentially unethical work to develop a "truth serum" for the Army shouldn't detract from his major contributions to American medicine.

Questionable LSD experiments lurk in bioethics icon’s background

By James P. Rathmell

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images A girl with a high fever gets tested for malaria at the…

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The debate on the potential merits and harm of the technology must include voices from nations where its use could have profound ramifications.

Gene drive debate must include voices from Africa, elsewhere

By Richard Nchabi Kamwi

Manish Swarup/AP Nearly 150 protesters, some of them HIV-positive, demonstrate in New Delhi, India,…

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Secondary patents, which rarely represent anything new in terms of science, prolong a company's monopoly on a drug and its ability to charge high prices for it.

Pharma’s secret weapon to keep drug prices high

By Priti Radhakrishnan

Gerald Herbert/AP

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Rather than shifting end-of-life conversations away from medical residents, they should be given the space and training to have these difficult discussions.

Should medical residents be trusted with end-of-life conversations?

By Ravi Parikh

Don Petersen/AP

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With end-of-life care, requiring second opinions or prior authorization for high-risk, low-yield procedures could help prevent useless and perhaps harmful interventions.

Why do we pay for bad health care?

By Ira Byock

John Moore/Getty Images Kim Sullivan, whose son (in photo) died of a heroin overdose, prepares…

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Battling opioid abuse is a public health imperative. But it shouldn't come at the expense of the millions of Americans living with chronic pain.

Don’t throw out compassion in the war against opioid abuse

By Alison Bateman-House and Arthur Caplan

Eros Dervishi for STAT

Courtesy Seth Mnookin A self-portrait taken by the author during his recent hospital stay.

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I told everyone treating me for kidney stones that I had a history of substance abuse. They still gave me multiple prescriptions for opioid pain relief.

I told my doctors my drug history. Yet they gave me opioids without counseling

By Seth Mnookin

FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

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Long work shifts for medical residents can threaten patient safety. They can also harm the health and safety of residents themselves.

Working to exhaustion: How medical residents’ long shifts put patients at risk

By Tejal K. Gandhi and Patricia A. McGaffigan

NIH The NIH's clinical research hospital, known as the Clinical Center, 1950. The…

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The Clinical Research Center program is one of the most successful research enterprises funded by the NIH. Its decision to abandon the centers is a mistake.

The NIH is abandoning vital clinical research centers. That’s a mistake

By David M. Nathan and David G. Nathan

Rick Maiman/AP Demonstrators protest on the steps of New York's City Hall in November…

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The tools are now available to stop the spread of HIV and end the AIDS epidemic. Do we have the will to do it?

An AIDS-free world is possible, but do we have the will to achieve it?

By Anthony S. Fauci and Deborah L. Birx

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images An FDA advisory committee meets in Silver Spring, Md.

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Emotional appeals from the public or from politicians do nothing to establish the parameters of safety or efficacy, on which FDA drug approvals are based.

FDA’s drug approval process should be based on science, not public opinion

By David Gortler

Courtesy Lorne Brandes Dr. Lorne Brandes in his lab in the Institute of Cell Biology…

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Developing a new drug and ushering it through early rounds of clinical trials usually takes a huge team of scientists and billions of dollars. I did it without either.

I took a drug to clinical trials on my own 30 years ago. That couldn’t happen today

By Lorne J. Brandes

Saul Loeb/AFP-Getty

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After four decades of fighting against Roe v. Wade, anti-abortion activists see clinics closing and the abortion rate dropping — and sense victory.

Abortion foes sense victory after decades-long fight

By Troy Newman

Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty

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New recommendations call for the elimination of routine wellness visits in adults, but the suggestions may have been based on questionable evidence.

Why we won’t stop providing routine wellness visits

By Ben Smith and Michael Hochman

Chip Somodevilla/Getty

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Myalgic encephalomyelitis, or "chronic fatigue syndrome," affects millions worldwide, but the debilitating disease has been the victim of government neglect and stigmatizing research.

Why we shouldn’t call it ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’

By Rivka Solomon

Rick Bowmer/AP Family nurse practitioner Terrance James examines a young patient at the Multnomah…

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Instead of drawing divisive lines based on training or credentials, it's time to give full practice authority to proven nurse practitioners.

Let nurse practitioners work independently

By Vinay Prasad

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Enter a list of symptoms into WebMD and it often tells you that you have cancer. The one time it didn't, I had cancer.

The one time WebMD didn’t tell me it was cancer, it was

By Amy S. Wheeler

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Preprints can dramatically speed up the sharing of biomedical information without harming the scientific process.

Embrace preprints and set biomedical information free

By Jessica Polka

Kayana Szymczak for STAT An electroconvulsive therapy machine is seen in a treatment room in the…

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Despite its portrayal in the media, electroconvulsive therapy isn't medically or clinically controversial. Calling it that risks people's mental health and even their lives.

Don’t call electroconvulsive therapy ‘shock therapy’

By Kate G. Farber and Charles H. Kellner

Joe Raedle/Getty Images Under the current definition, sugary breakfast cereals squeak into the healthy category.

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Rather than calling food healthy, we should use the terms nutritious or nourishing.

Why ‘healthy’ food is a bankrupt concept

By Roxanne B. Sukol

M. Spencer Green/AP Nurse practitioners Michele Knappe, left, and Julie Zimmer go over a patient's…

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States that did not support the Equal Rights Amendment 40 years ago are today less likely to support nurse practitioners (a mostly female profession) from practicing independently.

Sexist state laws hold back many nurse practitioners

By Nancy Rudner

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