In Slovenia, a model for prioritizing chronic disease prevention

Plus: Med school enrollment is up

December 10, 2025 Check out STAT+

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By Theresa Gaffney Morning Rounds Writer and Reporter

Good morning. It's so cold in Boston. Send tips for insulation, warming, and mustering the energy to go outside in the dark.

education Med school enrollment is up More than 100,000 people are enrolled in M.D. programs for the 2025-2026 academic year, according to data released yesterday by the Association of American Medical Colleges. It's the first time total enrollment has been that high, after a 5.3% increase in applicants from the previous year.  Some experts worry that action by the Trump administration, including a new caps on federal loan assistance and increased scrutiny around international students, could lead to drops in medical school enrollment. Any potential effects likely won't be seen until next year or the year after, as people typically commit to school far ahead of time. In the meantime, here are more data from this year:  Women made up 55% of newly enrolled students, making this the seventh year in a row that women have been the majority of applicants, matriculants, and total enrollment. But it's the third year in a row that the increase in matriculants has been larger for men than women. (Read: They're catching up!) For the fourth year in a row, there was a decrease in applicants and matriculants with parents who have less than a bachelor's degree or who have jobs categorized as "service, clerical, skilled, or unskilled." AAMC changed its methodology for collecting race and ethnicity data, so the group did not compare this year's data to previous years. But as former STAT reporter Usha Lee McFarling wrote in January, there was, at least initially, a steep drop in enrollment of Black and Hispanic students after the Supreme Court banned the consideration of race in admissions in 2023. what's the word Bones and blue raspberry A couple hints about bones today in STAT's weekly mini crossword puzzle. Plus: "sugar suffix." I knew that one because of the song "Blue Rasberry" by Katy Kirby. See if you can figure it out. first opinion When anti-science rhetoric enters the exam room When a patient at the clinic has strong anti-science or anti-vaccine beliefs, physician Krutika Kuppalli can usually feel it before she begins to speak. And once she does bring up vaccines, there's often a palpable tension in the room. The rise of anti-science rhetoric has made routine care "feel like walking into an ideological minefield," Kuppalli writes in a new First Opinion essay. And it's getting worse.  It's bad for patient health, but it also takes an emotional toll on clinicians, Kuppali argues. "I should not walk into a room wondering whether decades of training and years of caring for a patient will be dismissed because of something they saw on social media," she writes. "Yet this is where we are." Read more on how physicians are impacted and what action is needed.

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the maha diagnosis Slovenia did it first, actually STAT Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made the prevention of chronic diseases a key political issue for the Trump administration in a way that's never been seen before in the U.S. But as STAT's Andrew Joseph reports, the central European country of Slovenia has been prioritizing prevention in its health system for decades.  In Slovenia, medical training prioritizes early detection of chronic disease symptoms, and family medicine practices screen for the conditions as a rule. When somebody is identified as at risk, there's a system in place to route them to programs featuring dedicated lifestyle coaching and counseling. Health promotion centers throughout the country offer workshops, group lessons, and individual appointments focused on nutrition, exercise, and stress management.  Read more from Drew on what sort of success Slovenia has seen with its systematic approach, and how Kennedy's strategies compare so far. cardiovascular health Uterine fibroids linked to elevated risk of heart disease Uterine fibroids are almost always noncancerous, but these growths can bring debilitating pain, excessive bleeding, and infertility to the more than 25 million U.S. women who live with them. Now there may be a new danger: A study published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association suggests women with fibroids have a higher risk of heart attacks, strokes, and peripheral artery disease compared to those without. Researchers analyzed insurance claims data for more than 2.7 million premenopausal women to see who developed heart disease. After 10 years, 5.4% of women with fibroids had a cardiovascular event compared to 3% of women without fibroids. A caveat: Women in the control group may have had undiagnosed fibroids. Why fibroids put women at greater risk isn't known, the authors emphasize, but similar biological mechanisms may be at work. Fibroids and cardiovascular disease both feature the growth of smooth muscle cells and excessive fibrous connective tissue as well as calcification and inflammation.  "This study highlights yet another aspect in the unique factors that impact women in regard to the leading cause of death among them — cardiovascular disease," Stacey Rosen, president of the American Heart Association and executive director of the Katz Institute for Women's Health of Northwell Health, said in a statement. "These findings linking fibroids to heart disease support the need to discuss the bigger picture that considers ways to identify and reduce cardiovascular disease risk, even among those women who may not have any other apparent risk factors." — Elizabeth Cooney

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Thanks for reading! More next time,

theresa.gaffney@statnews.com

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