Author: Devon Herrick

Are Food Stamps Healthy?

Posted on by Devon Herrick

In 1996 Bill Clinton signed the law ending welfare as we know it. This quote was written 20 years later in 2016:

More than 13 million people received cash assistance from the government in 1995, before the law was passed. Today, just 3 million do.

“Simply put, welfare reform worked because we all worked together,” Bill Clinton, who signed into law welfare reform, or the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times in 2006. Clinton had campaigned on a pledge to “end welfare as we know it” and today it is all too apparent that he succeeded.

I tend to disagree with the last sentence.

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Medscape 2023 Physician Pay Survey

Posted on by Devon Herrick

Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to get an appointment to see a primary care physician? It’s partly because many doctors don’t work in primary care. The push to specialize starts early in medical school. A physician told me as much. He wanted to be a primary care physician but his mentors in medical school told him he really didn’t. The truth was he wanted to see a variety of patients with a variety of different health problems, but his professors pushed him to specialize. From talking to him I got the impression that there was also a subtle coercion. It was like the professors were saying, “if you want me to mentor you then you will take my advice.” His professors considered specialties to be more challenging, more interesting, but it’s also that many specialties come with higher pay.

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Should You Jumpstart Your Heart at Home?

Posted on by Devon Herrick

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you have probably seen television shows where doctors revived a patient whose heart had stopped. If you’re old enough, you probably even know people who have suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. My grandfather had one, but I know of numerous others. Something they all have in common is they’re all dead. About 85 to 90 percent of people who suffer a sudden cardiac arrest do not survive, because they don’t get help in time.

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