Immigrant patients are often bewildered when they need to seek health care in the U.S., and that care usually comes from physicians who are unsympathetic to their plight.
Rates of referral to a cardiologist, which markedly improves cardiovascular outcomes, differ significantly based on nonclinical patient characteristics.
Those who survived Hurricanes Katrina and Rita faced homelessness and physical and mental health problems that created ethical dilemmas for physicians.
Medicine, a high-energy consumer and generator of much waste—some of it toxic—must scale back the health care enterprise in the interest of preserving a livable environment.