There is always time to choose compassion

source Meredith Magee Donnelly There are a few moments in my life that I will cherish forever. The birth of my daughters was not a beautiful, calm experience. They were going to be born 6 weeks early, because of the anatomy of my spine the epidural wouldn’t go in, and after thirty horrific minutes of […]

Why Bill Maher is Right About Marijuana – But Also Terribly Wrong.

Source: HBOWatch Mike Magee Bill Maher prides himself on logic and clarity, and of course, in-your-face, biting humor. This is on full display during his “New Rules” segment, with which he closes each show. He is especially well known for his personal and professional advocacy for the legalization of marijuana. His major points are that […]

The Religion of Medicine.

Mike Magee This week, New York Times introspective columnist, David Brooks wrote, “Over the past few years, there has been a sharp rise in the number of people who are atheist, agnostic or without religious affiliation. A fifth of all adults and a third of the youngest adults fit into this category….As secularism becomes more prominent […]

A Young Man in the Mold of Martin Luther King

Video Today is Martin Luther King Day. On the government site that honors this federal holiday, it says: “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ‘Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?’ Each year, Americans across the country answer that question by coming together on the King Holiday to […]

The 2005 White House Conference on Aging: Ten Years Later

2015 White House CoA Mike Magee, MD We are rapidly approaching a 2015 White House Conference on Aging. It will mark the 50th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, and the 80th anniversary of the Social Security Act. (1) A decade ago, in preparation for the 2005 event(2), and as a commissioner on the National Commission on […]

Collapsing Databases in Health Care

Mike Magee Three enormous health databases are in the process of going virtual or electronic. The first of these is the Clinical Research Database or CRD. On the back end of the Vioxx withdrawal, conflict of interest concerns, and legitimate health consumer desires for early access to discovery information, major research databases moved toward open transparency. […]

Positive Medicine Credo: A Higher Calling

Mike Magee I was recently asked about the Medical Journalism Code of Ethics referenced in JAMA in 1992. One of the grounding documents on which that Code was based was the original Positive Medicine Credo which I wrote in 1986. Rereading it now, some two decades later, I believe it remains relevant as a series […]

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