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By The Staffs fo Kaiser Health News and The Guardian, California Healthline, June 12, 2020 America’s health care workers are dying. In some states, medical personnel account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. They tend to patients in hospitals, treating them, serving them food and cleaning their rooms. Others at risk work in nursing homes or are employed as home health aides. “Lost on the Frontline,” a collaboration between KHN and The Guardian, has identified 635 such workers...

Hosting a robust lineup of speakers including Stacey Abrams , David Byrne , Madeleine Albright , and Anthony Fauci to name a few, the Festival will be free and all online for the first time in its 16-year history. Tune in daily , June 28 - July 2, on our website. Programming will address events shaping our world today, including the Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing protests against systemic racism. We will look to what may lay ahead in the future, including opportunities for economic recovery,...

By Sandro Galea and Salma M. Abdalla, JAMA Network, June 12, 2020 More than 110 000 people have died in the US because of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, a pathogen that was unknown just 6 months ago. Ubiquitous fear and anxiety that accompanied the emergence of the new coronavirus led to widespread limits on physical contact in attempts to mitigate the spread of the virus. That in turn brought the US economy to a halt, resulting in more than 40 million people filing for...

By Michael Burke, EdSource, June 11, 2020 A movement to reform California public school policing and drastically rethink school safety is quickly gaining momentum amid nationwide protests against police brutality following the killing of George Floyd. In Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento and San Francisco, administrators and school boards are under pressure from community groups who are renewing demands for police-free schools and calling on districts to instead hire more counselors and other...

By Gabrielle Glaser, STAT, June 11, 2020 From his room in Los Angeles, Cecil Hannibal worries about his grandmother getting Covid-19 every time she goes to the supermarket in Louisville, Ky. In northern Georgia, Visaysha Harris puts limits on her news consumption, to keep from “taking too much of it all in.” In Dallas, Ashley Otah makes sure to follow reminders on her mindfulness apps. In New Jersey, Zane Keyes unwinds by riding his bike. “Since George Floyd’s murder, I feel angry,...

By Joaquin Palomino, San Francisco Chronicle, June 12, 2020 Phelicia Jones was devastated five years ago as she watched a video of five police officers shooting a young black man more than 20 times in San Francisco’s Bayview district after he refused to drop a knife. The 2015 killing of Mario Woods sparked protests across the Bay Area and reforms within the Police Department. Jones and others hoped to see real shifts in police conduct in San Francisco, but by at least one important measure,...

By Ari Eastman, May 23, 2020, The Thought Catalog. I reopened some wounds last night. I mean, not literally. Though I guess that wouldn’t be atypical. I do have a tendency to pick at scabs. I’ve scratched things off until they bleed. I’ve pushed the tweezers a little too far. I’ve never been good at knowing when to stop. Last night, I dug up repressed memories. I took a shovel to all my layers of defense mechanisms and didn’t stop until I hit bone. I stopped making jokes. I looked at the...

Like many of you, I have experienced the events of the past weeks with a profound sense of anguish. My heart goes out to the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. My heart breaks at the incomprehensible number who have been harmed by racist violence and by the inaction that has allowed those harms to take place. As a doctor and a policymaker, I often hear the question “what it is about black and brown people” that makes us more vulnerable to the virus? That question...

By Saul Levin, American Psychiatric Association, June 10, 2020 The public health emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on virtually all facets of our daily lives, especially health care. While the ultimate effects of COVID-19 on both individuals and populations are unclear, we know we will have to navigate the impact of the pandemic on the behavioral health system. The rates of depression, suicide, and substance use are expected to surge as communities continue...

By Aidin Vaziri, San Francisco Chronicle, June 10, 2020 Debbie Madhok is an emergency and intensive care unit physician at San Francisco General Hospital in the city’s Mission District, one of the neighborhoods hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic. As stay-at-home orders went into effect and case numbers started rising in the city, she started keeping daily journals on her iPhone, documenting thoughts and observations culled from her shifts treating coronavirus and ICU patients. Her...

The team at Resilient Strategies share their perspectives on trauma and resilience under conditions of oppression, and how to heal. Link to full podcast is within this blog post.

We Are The Medicine: An Online Festival for Real Human Connection Everyone is welcome! Invite your loved ones, whether they’re far away or you’re cooped up in quarantine together. We can’t wait to connect with all of you. STARTING TODAY June 12th at 4 PM