A recent editorial in The Lancet issued a dire warning to the international medical community: medicine is a weapon of war in Syria. It is just the latest in a series of reportsfrom across the Middle East on how medical care and medical professionals and facilities are being used to inflict politically-motivated violence.
Last week, NPR ran a story that made me cringe, describing a major humanitarian group’s decision to stop treating patients from detention centers in Misrata, Libya. According to the report, “torture was so rampant that some detainees were brought for care only to make them fit for further interrogation.”
Last week, the New York Times published “As Doctors Use More Devices, Potential for Distraction Grows,” which offers a critical look at the place of mobile technology and computers in the hospital.
On Monday, Amnesty International launched the “death clock” in Times Square in New York City. Every 90 seconds, it ticks off another woman’s life lost from pregnancy-related causes.
Recently, Foreign Policy published “The Long Emergency,” an analysis of the future of the United States’ HIV/AIDS programming and funding as the Obama administration reshapes its global health agenda.