Perspectives from Doctors, Patients, Policymakers
Q: Why are drug companies among Placebo Journal’s favorite targets for satire?
A: I don’t dislike drug companies. We need their products, and they need to make a profit. But how can you resist making fun of their creating the impression that your problems will go away if you take a pill?
Failure Redefined
A mother assures doctors who tried to save her son from an incurable disease that their compassionate care was a true success.
Predicting Suicide
Harvard psychologist Matthew Nock has undertaken a large-scale study to understand why people take their own lives and find ways to assess those at risk.
Chiari Malformation: Facing the Pain
A father and son fight through the ordeal of multiple surgeries to repair the boy's skull.
Homeless Health Care
Peter L. Slavin and David F. Torchiana explain how physicians have taken to the streets to help some of the most vulnerable among us.
Second Opinion
Proto readers assess drug shortages' ripple effect, explain how afterbirth is not an afterthought and describe treating trauma.
Palliative Care: Treating the Whole Patient
Peter L. Slavin and David F. Torchiana explain how focusing on more than just curing a disease can greatly improve a person's quality of life.
When Social Ills Become Medical
To treat her young patients, Nadine Burke uses research on how adverse childhood experiences affect health.
Second Opinion
Proto readers tout metabolomics, advocate residency hour restrictions and describe an intriguing personal connection to a past story.
A New Era in Medical Education
With tighter resident-hour limits starting in July, Peter L. Slavin and David F. Torchiana discuss the challenges ahead to train physicians in the confines of a 16-hour workday.
Lacking a standardized test to assess a baby’s health at birth, anesthesiologist Virginia Apgar created a simple rubric that persists more than a half century later.
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“When I opened my spring issue of Proto, I was startled to see an X-ray of a baby with open safety pins in his esophagus. As I turned the page of the article I got a second shock. There was a photo of some of the 30 objects taken from an infant named Joseph B. I knew this was my father, Joseph Burke.”
