Opinion | ‘It’s Not a First-World Problem’: What We Heard This Week

“It’s not a first-world problem and it’s not a Western-world problem.” — Punith Kempegowda, MBBS, MD, PhD, MSc, of the University of Birmingham in England, about why all women with polycystic ovary syndrome should be assessed for body image concerns.

“It weighs on all of us every single day.” — Melissa Simon, MD, of Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, discussing what’s happened in the year since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“The incentive is actually flipped.” — Ben Aiken, MD, of Lantern Health in Asheville, North Carolina, discussing differences between direct primary care and a traditional fee-for-service model.

“When this drug is approved, it will honestly be a game changer.” — Aleksander Krag, MD, PhD, of the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, discussing the investigational agent resmetirom’s efficacy in resolving liver biopsy findings in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis in a phase III trial.

“It’s called ‘alarm fatigue’.” — Victoria Ochs, a medical student at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, about why fewer continuous glucose monitor alarms may be set than recommended.

“Maybe we aren’t doing as good of a job in that period to prevent mortality as we are during the delivery.” — Eileen Wang-Koehler, MD, of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, on postpartum maternal mortality and morbidity rates.

“Once they’re in our bodies, you kind of have to live with how long it takes your body to naturally excrete them.” — Laura Vandenberg, PhD, of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, discussing dioxin chemicals that were linked with thyroid dysfunction.