General Mental Health Articles
- About a third of cancer patients struggle with depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders, although these conditions often go undetected and undiagnosed. Kristin Kilbourn, a clinical psychologist at the University of Colorado Denver, said oncologists often don’t want to open up this “can of worms,” not to mention that mental health has long been deprioritized, with health care centers losing money caring for psychiatric patients. However, this neglect comes at a significant cost, with mortality rates up to 39% higher among cancer patients with depression when compared to those without mental illness. Read more here.
The Opioid Crisis
- Doctors have long taken for granted a devil’s bargain: Relieving intense pain, such as that caused by surgery and traumatic injury, risks inducing the sort of pleasure that could leave patients addicted. Opioids are among the most powerful, if not the most powerful, pain medications ever known, but for many years they have been a source of staggering morbidity and mortality. Read more here.
Health Care Costs
- The Business Group on Health has identified health care costs as a major trend employers will need to navigate in 2025. With the cost of care growing at historic rates, businesses are preparing for a year of challenging decisions to manage expenses while maintaining quality care for their employees. Many of these changes could affect primary care physicians and their patients. Read more here.
Gender-Affirming Care and LGBTQ Issues
- Many transgender people in the U.S. are scrambling to store up their treatments out of fear the incoming Trump administration will follow through on threats to restrict their healthcare. A popular underground hormone manufacturer stopped taking new orders in order to get through a backlog. “[We] didn’t expect to be hit as hard as we did after the election,” the manufacturer wrote on Reddit. Read more here.
- The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) sets global standards for doctors and nurses providing health care to transgender patients, especially for gender-affirming care. As that care has become increasingly politicized and banned across the United States, the organization’s work has become more fraught. Updating medical standards is slow and winding work, in which gaps in research are par for the course. Read more here.
- When the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a major fight over Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, conservatives defending the law plan to point to an unexpected place as a model: Europe. Two decades ago, Republicans appeared allergic to foreign influence on the U.S. legal system, decrying Supreme Court decisions that looked abroad — often to Europe — for guidance on culture-war issues like gay rights and the death penalty. Read more here.
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