Last weekend, I did one of my favorite things: I went to see a movie by myself. I had to choose between "My Old Ass," in which a teenager tripping on mushrooms meets her 39-year-old future self, and "Speak No Evil," a horror film based on a Danish movie by the same name. Somehow, "Speak No Evil" seemed less scary to me at this moment of my life, so that's what I went with. It was a good choice: tense, tight, not (too) gory.
It also left me thinking about the trust we put in doctors. In "Speak No Evil," an American couple and their child vacationing in Italy meet an Irish family of three. The American parents are wary of the Irish adults, who come on pretty strong. But they visibly relax when the Irish father, played by an alarmingly buff James McAvoy, says he's a doctor, offhandedly mentioning his volunteer work with Medicines Sans Frontières. Soon they are spending every day of vacation together — and months later, the Americans decide to visit their new friends in Ireland. Finding out their host may not actually be a physician is one of the most jarring early warning signs to the Americans — though they continue to make bad decisions typical for characters in a horror movie.
I think that speaks (forgive me) to the way those of us without an M.D. or D.O. (or, heck, D.D.M. or D.V.M.) think about doctors: that they must be of good character, that they must be rich enough to comfortably house three guests, that you are physically and emotionally safe with them. Good thing? Bad thing? Depends on the doctor, I suppose — but loved seeing a horror movie twist that trust around.
This week on First Opinion: The U.N. General Assembly this week featured a high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance. Ahead of the meeting, Scott Weese, a veterinarian who is active in combatting antimicrobial resistance, wrote about the need to address inappropriate use of antibiotics in animals.
After the meeting, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus took to First Opinion to celebrate what he called "a major new political declaration to radically scale up efforts to combat antimicrobial resistance," approved unanimously by U.N. member countries. He wrote, "I see this declaration as a strong signal from countries that they are committed to addressing this global threat."
Meanwhile, as H5N1 continues its worrying spread, Ranu Dhillon, Abraar Karan, and Devabhaktuni Srikrishna propose one way to get better data: sequence wastewater material as close as possible to dairy farms. Speaking of infectious disease: a pediatrician writes about his mother's bout with West Nile virus, which came with a most alarming symptom.
And in D.C.-related opeds: new Health and Human Services rules can't touch the primary reason for the current outbreak of research misconduct; the need to reauthorize — and expand — the Older Americans Act to keep seniors safe from extreme heat; how the next president can reform Medicare; how to fix the collection of data about Americans with disabilities; and why Hatch-Waxman is in the grips of a midlife crisis (welcome to the club).
Recommendation of the week: Who doesn't love a good mystery? Read STAT's Rachel Cohrs Zhang on the anti-pharma bus touring swing states and others with contentious elections. Who's paying for the bus? Well, that's the mystery.
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