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She’s gone, peacefully and quietly. In my ICU, this is a “good” death. Without shocks, chest compressions, or drama. Her family at her bedside throughout. Yet we failed her. We could have done better. We should have done better. We failed her in medical school. We spend countless hours in the anatomy lab but barely a few hours learning communication skills and palliative care. We read books on diseases and their cures, but only a few handouts on how to provide comfort. Eager and enthusiastic future doctors are well-prepared to treat sickness but ill-equipped to face the challenges of managing death. (Jeremy Topin, 5/31)

Too often, individuals suffering from serious mental illnesses — those in greatest need of care — have been isolated and cared for outside of traditional health care, as in the asylums of the past. There, mental health care was separate from, and far from equal to, traditional health care. Why the disconnect? Psychiatry has been hampered by an inability to observe and record the physical workings of the brain. Because of that, psychiatric assessments and treatments have been viewed as somewhat mysterious. (John Campo, 5/31)

Some observers have expressed concern about the recent appointment of Scott Gottlieb as head of the Food and Drug Administration because of his past work with pharmaceutical companies. However, it’s important to remember that the FDA handles a lot more than drugs and biologics. In fact, addressing the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) regulations will be a critical issue for Dr. Gottlieb. (Richard Williams, 5/31)

During the first few months of the Trump presidency, as in previous Republican administrations, there have been numerous restrictions, limitations, and debates regarding sexual and reproductive health. These have included the following: reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prevents US federal foreign funding for nongovernmental organizations that provide counseling or referrals for abortion-related services; provisions in the proposed American Health Care Act that would have excluded Planned Parenthood from Medicaid reimbursements, restricted access to plans that cover abortions, and eliminated essential health services such as maternal care; and a congressional resolution allowing states the right to deny Title X federal family planning grant money to any organization that provides abortion services or is associated with a clinician or center that performs abortions. With Republican control of Congress and the White House, measures and attempts to limit access to selected sexual and reproductive health services will undoubtedly continue. (Divya Mallampati, Melissa A. Simon and Elizabeth Janiak, 5/30)

Until a few decades ago, the popular but falsely reassuring belief was that babies in the womb were perfectly protected by the placenta and that children were just “little adults,” requiring no special protections from environmental threats. We now know that a host of chemicals, pollutants and viruses readily travel across the placenta from mother to fetus, pre-polluting or pre-infecting a baby even before birth. (Frederica Perera, 6/1)