Ah, summer — a time for beach vacations, hikes in lush forests, and blockbuster movies. In First Opinion land, that means looking at airlines and the health care system, ticks, and lessons for AI in medicine.
Let's start with the horrifying. This week, Lindsey Ulin writes about a terrifying experience she had on a plane earlier this year. As a physician, when she began experiencing anaphylaxis, she knew she needed epinephrine immediately. But her plane did not come equipped with an epinephrine autoinjector, aka an EpiPen. Since 2016, when there was an EpiPen shortage, the Federal Aviation Administration has issued airlines "emergency" waivers, which allow planes to take off without one onboard. Ulin ended up being lucky — but she says it's far past time for the FAA to require EpiPens on every plane again.
As someone with a pretty intense bug phobia, I am pretty proud of making it through editing Richard S. Ostfeld's delightful essay about being a tick biologist whose body seems to kill ticks. I'm mighty jealous — but it also gives me hope. As he points out, by studying people like him, perhaps researchers will be able to create a tick-busting vaccine one day. Can I sign up for that clinical trial?
Back to health care and airlines: People often say that the medical system needs to take lessons from the airline industry. Given the chaos of air travel this summer, Mary C. Meyer, a frontline physician and director of disaster preparedness for a California health care organization, is flipping that truism.
Plus: "Oppenheimer" has some lessons for AI in medicine. Former Sen. Max Baucus makes the compelling point that advances in Alzheimer's treatment are literally inaccessible for people in rural areas, like his home state of Montana. And more below.
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