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Doctors

Fabricated Panic Over Antisemitism In The US Medical Community

March 9, 2025 Alice Rothchild, Mondoweiss. , , , ,
In 2024, I was disinvited from presenting a lecture on the health and human rights consequences of the Israeli assault on Gaza, by unnamed administrators at Harvard University, who (I was told) accused me of being an antisemite. At Geisel, the medical school affiliated with Dartmouth, I was also invited and then met with an “indefinite postponement” for a similar presentation. It is clear these have not been isolated events. Two recent pieces provide an illustration of the current ideological battle taking place with in the U.S. healthcare community.

Louisiana Issues Arrest Warrant For New York Doctor Over Abortion Pill

February 4, 2025 Zane McNeill, Truthout. , , , , ,
A grand jury in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has indicted and issued arrest warrants for a New York physician who prescribed abortion pills to a pregnant minor in Louisiana, which has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. The case directly targets the most common abortion method in the U.S. and challenges protections for out-of-state providers in Democratic-led states. In addition to physician Margaret Carpenter and her company, Nightingale Medical, PC, the grand jury unanimously issued an indictment and an arrest warrant for the minor’s mother.

US Health Insurance System Is Failing, Say Doctors

January 27, 2025 Michael Sainato, The Guardian. , , , ,
American doctors are accusing US health insurance giants of causing deadly delays to vital medical procedures and care – and putting profits ahead of their patients’ health. Firms including United Healthcare have denied basic scans, and taken months to reconsider, according to physicians who spoke to the Guardian. “There’s good evidence that these kinds of delays literally kill people,” said Dr Ed Weisbart, former chief medical officer for Express Scripts, one of the largest prescription benefits managers in the US. “For some people, this isn’t just an inconvenience and an annoyance and an aggravation.

Thousands Of Resident Physicians In Philadelphia Voted To Unionize

January 22, 2025 Aubrey Whelan, Portside. , , , , ,
Eight in 10 doctors-in-training in Philadelphia are now represented by unions, following a wave of labor organizing across major health systems in the region. Doctors at three Philadelphia health systems and Delaware's largest health provider voted to join the Committee of Interns and Residents, a division of the Service Employees International Union. The move follows a national trend of physicians unionizing around the country, as doctors increasingly look for solutions to burnout in a field now dominated by large health system employers.

Nurses And Doctors Are On Strike At Eight Oregon Hospitals

January 15, 2025 Kari Thompson, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
Declaring that understaffing had them “running on empty,” 5,000 nurses, doctors, midwives, and nurse practitioners walked off the job January 10 in an open-ended strike at Providence Health and Services, the dominant hospital chain in the Pacific Northwest. The strikers work at eight hospitals plus women’s health clinics across Oregon. They’re demanding proper staffing, affordable health insurance, and competitive pay that can attract and retain seasoned workers. “I’ve been with Providence for over 30 years, and I have seen what’s changed,” said medical-surgical nurse Kim Martin at Providence Portland Medical Center.

New York City Doctors Are Ready To Strike

January 14, 2025 Juan Cruz Ferre, Left Voice. , , , ,
Nearly 1000 doctors in NYC Health and Hospitals (H+H) are ready to go on strike. They may work at public (H+H) hospitals, but their employers are corporate health systems, such as Mount Sinai, NYU, and PAGNY. The doctors — who are organized with the Doctors Council, an SEIU affiliate (DC-SEIU) — are denouncing chronic understaffing. They understand this problem to be the result of uncompetitive contracts, both in terms of salary and benefits. Since the announcement on January 2, Mayor Eric Adams interceded to ask for a 60-day “cooling-off” period, trying to avert the work stoppage, and negotiations are still underway.

Philadelphia’s Doctors-In-Training Are Unionizing By The Thousands

January 8, 2025 Juan Cruz Ferre and Jason Koslowski, Left Voice. , , , ,
I think pretty universally in medical training, there’s an under-appreciation and under-compensation of medical residents. A lot of it comes down to pay, because that’s so fundamental, but other benefits, like time off and parental leave, are certainly a major concern for people, and moonlighting and overtime and things like that generally are under-compensated as well. At my hospital specifically, there are concerns about access to appropriate equipment and basic medical supplies. So, a lot of this becomes very much like logistical issues.

A Family Doctor Jailed For Attacking Petrol Pumps With Just Stop Oil

January 8, 2025 The Canary. , , , ,
Dr Patrick Hart took action in August 2022 to demand an end to new licences and consents for oil and gas projects in the UK, something which has subsequently become government policy. Hart appeared before Judge Mills at Chelmsford Crown Court on Tuesday 7 January after being found guilty in October 2024 of Criminal Damage. He had been disabling petrol pumps at Esso Thurrock Services on the M25 on 24 August 2022. Esso is a subsidiary of the Oil giant Exxon Mobil which infamously concealed the alarming findings of its own scientists, which showed that fossil fuels caused global warming.

EveryDoctor’s Campaign To Fight NHS Privatisation Is Taking Off

October 21, 2024 Hannah Sharland, The Canary. , , , ,
Campaign group EveryDoctor is calling for MPs to step up to fix the NHS. The group has built a manifesto with the input of hundreds of doctors. This blueprint spells out a series of urgent actions the new government must now make to mend the UK’s ailing health services and stop NHS privatisation. Already, the campaign group has engaged with over sixty MPs, but there’s still more work to do to get the rest – including the new Labour government – on board. So, it urgently needs help to get more to sign up for the next steps in its campaign.

EveryDoctor Is Running Its Most Important Campaign Yet

September 30, 2024 Hannah Sharland, The Canary. , , , , ,
Canary columnist Dr Julia Grace-Patterson’s campaign group EveryDoctor is building a manifesto to fix the NHS. With the input of hundreds of doctors, it’s creating a blueprint of the urgent actions the new government should be taking after fourteen years of Tory destruction. That is, this is the plan Labour should be putting forward – but has so far offered only more of the same privatisation that got the NHS into this mess. It aims to host a meeting with MPs on 10 October to kick off a series of parliamentary briefings spelling out the manifesto’s demands. So now, EveryDoctor is asking members of the public to join it in calling on MPs to attend this vital session.

Dr. Khalil Khalidy, Orthopedic Doctor in Deir al Balah, Gaza

September 26, 2024 Eleanor Goldfield, Project Censored. , , , , ,
The voices of Palestinians in Gaza are some of the most censored in the world. If they are not killed outright, they are silenced by purposeful omission in order to support Israel’s narrative. It is therefore vital that alternative media work to find and platform these voices, and that people who are not fooled by pro-Israel propaganda engage with it, share it, and allow it to inform our actions. This week we sit down with Dr. Khalil Khalidy, an orthopedic doctor in Deir al-Balah, Gaza. His testimony is necessary and powerful and understandably distressing. We are therefore here including a content warning for this week’s show as Dr. Khalidy does not sugarcoat his lived experiences.

Buffalo Medical Residents Strike For Fair Pay And Better Conditions

September 9, 2024 Derek Seidman, Truthout. , , , , ,
Around 100 picketers stood in front of Buffalo General Hospital on September 4, chanting and talking to reporters under the midday sun. They gripped signs with slogans like “Fair Contract Now” and “United For Our Patients.” Cars honked in support as they passed by, with some drivers thrusting fists into the warm air through their open windows. It was the second day of a four-day strike by University at Buffalo (UB) medical residents over pay, benefits and working conditions. The strike was authorized by a resounding 93 percent vote after more than a year of bargaining attempts. The striking medical residents in Buffalo are part of a rising wave of unionization among medical workers stretching from California to Vermont and spurred by demands for better compensation and working conditions.

Why More Doctors Are Joining Unions

September 8, 2024 Lambeth Hochwald, Medscape. , , , , ,
With huge shifts over the past decade in the way doctors are employed — half of all doctors now work for a health system or large medical group — the idea of unionizing is not only being explored but gaining traction within the profession. In fact, 8% of the physician workforce (or 70,000 physicians) belong to a union, according to statistics gathered in 2022. Exact numbers are hard to come by, and, interestingly, although the American Medical Association (AMA) " supports the right of physicians to engage in collective bargaining," the organization doesn't track union membership among physicians, according to an AMA spokesperson.

Medical Staff Refusing To Evacuate Central Gaza’s Last Functioning Hospital

August 29, 2024 Tareq S. Hajjaj, Mondoweiss. , , , , , ,
On August 21, the Israeli army ordered different areas in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, to evacuate their homes and newly-erected tents. This was the first step in the army’s invasion and campaign of destruction in Deir al-Balah, the last town that has not been completely leveled throughout the war. One of the blocks ordered to evacuate included the last fully operational hospital in central and southern Gaza, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, the governmental hospital has been working at four times its capacity, hosting over 700 patients.

Open Letter From US Physicians And Nurses After Visit To Gaza

July 25, 2024 Open Letter, Popular Resistance. , , , , , ,
We are forty-five American physicians, surgeons, and nurses who have volunteered in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023. We worked with various nongovernmental organizations and the World Health Organization in hospitals throughout the Strip. In addition to our medical and surgical expertise, many of us have a public health background, as well as experience working in humanitarian and conflict zones, including Ukraine during the brutal Russian invasion. Some of us are veterans of the United States Armed Forces. We are a multifaith and multiethnic group. None of us support the horrors committed on October 7 by Palestinian armed groups and individuals in Israel.
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