Category: Health Care
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Things Fall Apart: Virginia Homelessness Up 7%
by James A. Bacon An estimated 5,335 people lived in homeless shelters in Virginia in 2021, a 7% increase from the previous year, according to an article in Stacker, a national nonprofit news source. The Old Dominion ranked 10th nationally in the size of its percentage increase since 2020. Nationally, the number of people living…
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Physicians, Hospitals and Gender Dysphoria in Minors- Fundamental Disputes
By James C. Sherlock What about the doctors in this controversy? What about hospital and state oversight? What do laws and regulations require and on what are they silent? We’ll look. The dispute among physicians on the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors is primarily an ethical one. They agree on the diagnosis and some…
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UVa Children’s Takes Step Forward in Support to Gender Dysphoric Minors
by James C. Sherlock I congratulate UVa Children’s Hospital for taking a step forward in the treatment of gender dysphoric minors. One of the criticisms of that service was its singular focus on endocrinology. Moving from mental health support to hormone therapy is, as Mayo Clinic warns, a big step. Starting this week, comprehensive services…
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Scandal in Virginia Not-for-Profit Hospital Reported by the NY Times – Regional Perspectives
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes my subscription to The New York Times pays off. This is one of those times. The subtitle on the Times story is: Bon Secours Mercy Health, a major nonprofit health system, used the poverty of Richmond Community Hospital’s patients to tap into a lucrative federal drug program. It is a blockbuster…
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Fixes are Available for Nurse Shortages – Virginia Needs to Take Action in the Upcoming GA Session
by James C. Sherlock A future without enough nurses is unacceptable. There is some good news. Clinical nurses make a lot more money now than they used to. COVID fixed that. The travel nurse bubble is burst, but the pay raises for staff nurses appear to be sticking. The raises for nurses across the field…
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Small and Medium Businesses in Virginia Cited Among Best Healthcare Workplaces Nationally
by James C. Sherlock There are a lot of problems in Virginia healthcare starting with staff shortages, especially nurses, and our COPN incumbent protection system. So, it is not an easy thing to compete and grow in the healthcare space. But two Virginia companies are doing so and succeeding in ways such businesses must, by…
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Use of Cross-Gender Hormones for Gender Transitions in Minors
by James C. Sherlock In the sometimes murky world of diagnosis and treatment of gender dysphoria in children and adolescents, the following steps generally but not always occur in order, with each potentially serving as an off-ramp: Diagnosis; Mental heath support; Social transition; Puberty blockers; Cross-gender hormones; and, Surgery; often but not always waiting for…
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Graph of the Day: Maternal Mortality
by James A. Bacon When writing about “systemic racism” in health care, journalists routinely cite the disparity in health outcomes between White and Black Women. Here in Virginia, the maternal death rate per 100,000 for Black women in 2018 was 37.3 — nearly twice the rate of 14.9 for White women. The disparity has grown…
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“Puberty Blockers Are Wonderful” – UVa Children’s Hospital
by James C. Sherlock How do people communicate? Generally by words and visuals and, in person, with body language. The art and science of marketing and sales is one of the bulwarks of any economy — and any political system. My article on the hard selling of hormone treatments — puberty blockers and cross-gender use…
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Slick Selling of Child Gender Transitions at UVa Children’s Hospital
by James C. Sherlock The University of Virginia Children’s Hospital offers a Madison Avenue-quality sales pitch for child gender transition. As written and smoothly delivered, it deflects any reservation parents may have in supporting such transitions by telling them they have been misled or are being selfish or both. It helps parents decide by blaming…
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Interview with Virginia’s Secretary of Health and Human Resources on Petersburg Health – Part 1
by James C. Sherlock I have written about the initiatives of the Youngkin Administration to help Petersburg improve the economic situation and quality of life in that city. Petersburg is last in education of children, last in health outcomes and factors, last in public safety. It is an economic basket case. The Youngkin administration and…
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A Chance for Petersburg
by James C. Sherlock The Youngkin administration is doing an unalloyed good thing the exact right way. In partnership with two Democrats. The Governor, in an extraordinary joint presentation with his cabinet secretaries and Democratic Mayor Samuel Parham, laid out a plan for broad state help to Petersburg. Standing on the stage with Democratic State Senator…
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U.K. Suit Demonstrates Legal Jeopardy for Virginia Child Transgender Clinics
by James C. Sherlock You knew it was coming. The Times of London has reported the inevitable lawsuit. Tavistock gender clinic ‘to be sued by 1,000 families’ The Tavistock gender clinic (now closed) is facing mass legal action from youngsters who claim they were rushed into taking life-altering puberty blockers. I have no idea if the…
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Bhattacharya Case Dismissed
by James A. Bacon A federal judge has dismissed a case against the University of Virginia by a medical student who charged that university officials had retaliated against him for disputing the speaker’s logic in a panel discussion about microaggressions. The plaintiff, Kieren Bhattacharya, “has nothing more than speculation to support his claim,” wrote Judge…
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Virginia Must Ensure Transgender Medical Treatment Is Safe
by James C. Sherlock Attorney Hans Bader and I in parallel articles have pointed out the serious questions posed by national and international experts about current medical practices in gender transitions for minors. Those questions include both the ethics of the diagnosis and treatment processes in use and the safety of the puberty blockers and cross-gender hormones…