Schering-Plough says goodbye via analyst call
If you follow the biopharma sector at all, then you’ll know one of the most noteworthy deals to be announced in recent months is the $41 billion deal where Merck will buy former rival Schering-Plough. With the deal closing soon, Schering-Plough’s execs had to deliver one last earnings call with the analyst community which cover [...]
More thoughts on the healthcare debate
If you follow this blog at all, you’ll know that healthcare policy is a big interest of mine. Given that this was the focus of President Obama’s most recent address (and that this blog is my personal soapbox) I thought I’d chip in three thoughts to the blogosphere “marketplace of ideas” on the topic. The [...]
Sleepless in Medicine
Econo/politco blogger Megan McArdle explains her rationale for why we need medical resident work reform (which I’ve posted on here and here): I am a gold medalist in the macho Sleepless Working Olympics. I once worked a 60-hour shift without sleep. (Yes, that’s 2.5 days without any shuteye.) One stormy February, I put in 468 [...]
Hazing by any other name
I read a WSJ piece today about some of the backlash towards proposals to reduce the bone-crushing hours that medical residents (doctors-in-training) need to endure. Having written a previous post on the subject attacking the crazy hours as “hazing”, I was eagerly awaiting some brilliant doctor to point out why I was wrong. I was [...]
Make Money off of the Uninsured
How much do the uninsured cost the American healthcare system? This is a question with great practical relevance, as without a clear understanding of the health needs of the uninsured and the cost of providing care for those needs, it’s impossible to make a policy which successfully addresses the issues facing them. Now, I personally [...]
A Potential Solution for Healthcare?
With the election coming, a great deal of talk on both sides of the aisle revolves around healthcare. Various competing and not-so-competing plans have been thrown around, but they all fall into the politician’s practice of promising everything while not properly accounting for the tradeoffs and costs. While I don’t profess to have all the [...]
Anxious Complexity
How do you think the economy has been going the past couple of years? David Brooks and Marginal Revolution note that despite the fact that US economic growth has been fairly strong in recent years (ignoring the current credit market crisis) and that US income inequality is not only comparable to the reputedly more egalitarian [...]
NextGen
Eight Years Date: (winter 2005-now) Lester Leung struck me as very odd the first time I met him. The odd dash of color in his hair. The strange look in his eyes whenever he talked about “pirates”. And the paranoid side of me was always a bit uneasy around someone who seemed to be nice [...]
Why Medical School is Like High School
Got this off a facebook group (this seems most pertinent to USC Med school) We have to get up at 6:45 am and drive to school We have lunch together at 12 on the quad We have lockers We are in the same room everyday There are lunch clubs The same people are officers in [...]
Healthcare: A Question of Morals or Economics?
I’ve been doing a lot of reading of Allie’s recent posts on healthcare since she’s now in what looks like a very interesting class on public health policy. In her first post, she responds to the question of whether or not health care is a right or a commodity and answers that it ought to [...]
