A STAT investigation: Black doctors are forced out of training at far higher rates than white physicians

(MICHAEL STARGHILL FOR STAT)

We start the week with another incisive investigation in our series on racism in health and medicine from STAT’s Usha Lee McFarling. This time, she details how Black residents either leave or are terminated from training programs at far higher rates than white residents, with many saying they are disciplined for omissions or errors that go unpunished for others. The result of this culling — long hidden, dismissed, and ignored by the larger medical establishment — is that many Black physicians have been unable to enter lucrative and extremely white specialties such as neurosurgery, dermatology, or plastic surgery.

“Why should we care?” Owoicho Adogwa, co-founder of the American Society of Black Neurosurgeons, asked. “Because we are destroying the lives of these individuals and because we know, when providers don’t match the population, care suffers.” Read more about the experiences of Black trainees, including Rosandra Daywalker (pictured above), who graduated summa cum laude from Morehouse Medical School, and yet felt that she may have never had had a fair chance to succeed in residency because of her race.

Kids under 5 can finally get vaccinated

The day that parents of young kids have been waiting for is finally here. The CDC officially recommended both the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines for kids as young as 6 months old. Shots could be offered as soon as today. The move came quickly on Saturday, one day after the FDA authorized the vaccines and hours after an unanimous vote by an advisory panel of outside experts known as Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. While it’s unclear how many parents will ultimately make the decision to vaccinate their young kids, pediatricians were confident about the decision.

“We talk a lot about the data, and we may lose the notion that we’re saving children’s lives,” said Sarah Long, an ACIP member. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 202 children between 6 months and 4 years of age have died from Covid-19, making it among the five leading causes of death for young children. STAT’s Jason Mast has more.

There are two vaccines for young kids. Which should you choose?

Perhaps you’re one of the parents who has anxiously awaited the arrival of a vaccine for young children, and now you have a decision to make. Which vaccine should you choose? We certainly can’t pick for you, but the two vaccines probably differ more here than they do in any other age group on the vaccination spectrum, according to STAT’s Helen Branswell and Matthew Herper. Both of these vaccines are made using the messenger RNA platform, but perhaps the similarities end there. There are dosing differences: three smaller doses for Pfizer, two larger ones for Moderna. Side effects: Pfizer is likely milder due to those smaller doses. A need for boosters? It remains to be seen for both vaccines. The bottom line is that it’s going to take some personal calculus for parents. For the full breakdown, read more.

Closer look: Why one doctor asks her patients about their religion

Like church and state, some tend to think that medicine and faith shouldn’t interact. But T. Salewa Oseni, a surgeon specializing in cancer, wants to push back on that assumption. While many physicians are comfortable relegating faith and religion to palliative or hospice care, she says in a STAT First Opinion that this reinforces the notion that faith, religion, and spirituality are only end-of-life issues and not also ways to foster human connections.

When a patient named Brenda was struggling and seemed lonely, Oseni asked her if she had a religious affiliation, and any community there. “Perhaps you can re-engage with your church or reach out to your pastor,” she suggested. “My goal as a physician is not just to cure my patients of cancer, but also to ensure that they find a new normal post-cancer that ensures optimal physical and emotional well-being,” Oseni writes. Read more.

The seeming surge of hepatitis cases in kids may not be as it appears

A new CDC study on cases of hepatitis in children has surprising — but not exactly definitive — results. Let’s rewind: When previously healthy little kids started showing up in hospitals with failing livers last fall and this spring, startled doctors and public health authorities didn’t know what was behind it. They also didn’t know if what they were seeing was actually new. There have always been cases of hepatitis in children for which a cause cannot be found, but they occur in very low numbers and aren’t well-studied or tracked.

Now, CDC scientists have come up with some estimates for the normal rate of this condition in the United States. “The cases that we’re currently describing, at least the trends, do not seem to be different to what we described prior to the pandemic,” senior author Jacqueline Tate told STAT’s Helen Branswell.

The factors that can drive lung cancer diagnosis at a later stage

Lung cancer is the most deadly cancer in the U.S., with some of the starkest racial and socioeconomic disparities in survival. A new study published today in Cancer examines over a decade of data to understand these disparities. Researchers found that patients who lived in areas with the lowest levels of education and income respectively had 12% and 13% higher odds of being diagnosed with an advanced stage of lung cancer. This was true broadly, for patients of any race, no matter what type of facility they were treated in.

But more education and higher income didn’t protect everyone equally — a Black patient who lived in the highest education and income areas was more likely to be diagnosed at an advanced stage than a white patient in the lowest brackets. An editorial accompanying the study points to systemic racism as a clear factor, and calls for more community-engaged efforts to help patients.

What to read around the web today

Two Tennessee Abortion Clinics, Awaiting High-Court Ruling, Grapple With Uncertainty, Kaiser Health News
Watchdog reveals flaw in Cerner computer system caused nearly 150 cases of harm at Spokane VA hospital, The Spokesman-Review
HCA, Steward abandon hospital deal in another win for FTC, STAT
How pregnant people can prepare for a summer of heat waves, The 19th
Tattoo Artists Face a Grayer Palette in Europe, The New York Times
WTO reaches a deal on Covid vaccine patent waivers, but industry and advocates remain unhappy, STAT