I spent the last few weeks studying and taking tests so I can continue my Board Certification (in Family Medicine). Physicians and other health care workers are licensed by the State of Rhode Island and must pay a hefty fee for that privilege, as well as show evidence that we have studied the new developments […]
Michael Fine, MD
Michael Fine, MD, is a writer, community organizer, and family physician. He is the chief health strategist for the City of Central Falls, RI, and a former Director of the Rhode Island Department of Health, 2011–2015. He is currently the Board Vice Chair and Co-Founder of the Scituate Health Alliance, and is the recipient of the Barbara Starfield Award, the John Cunningham Award, and the June Rockwell Levy Public Service Award. He is the author of several books, medical, novels and short stories, including On Medicine and Colonialism, Rhode Island Stories, and The Bull and Other Stories, You can learn more about Michael at www.michaelfinemd.com
Posted inColumns
Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about the Hepatitis B Vaccine and SNAP
This has been two weeks of particular craziness in health care, in which everyone, on all sides, did their level best at missing the boat. First, our friends at CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices went ahead and changed the recommendation for Hepatitis B vaccine for newborns, a crazy change if ever there was one. […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about vaccines and RFK Jr., redux
First, now is the time to get a flu shot if you haven’t gotten one already. Flu is spreading in some southern and western states. Holiday travel will bring it here. Don’t delay. That said, I got the bill for the COVID-19 shot I had last month. Or rather, I got a record of the […]
Posted inColumns
Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about healthcare in the developing world
I am writing from the Island of Brava, in Cape Verde, where I worked for a week with a great little organization called Project Health CV, which brings American volunteers to Cape Verde a few times a year to augment the health care that people in Cape Verde get from the government and the tiny […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about COVID-19 and the flu vaccine now
I had a COVID-19 vaccine last week. I’m traveling in 10 days and wanted to make sure I don’t get sick when I’m traveling. Better safe than sorry – better jabbed than stuck in a hotel room for five extra days, unable to go out. Or hospitalized. The COVID-19 vaccine was easy to get and […]
Posted inColumns
Dr. Michael Fine: Three things that are smart, not crazy, about health care
Three logical, smart, and hopeful things happened in health care in the past few weeks. I’m glad to be able to tell you about them. The first good thing is that the Rhode Island Department of Health joined Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York to form the Northeast Public Health […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about public health and gun violence
Crazy might not be the right word. Heartbreaking or heartrending would be better. But even heartrending isn’t strong enough. In these United States, our rate of gun death is 4.42 deaths per 100,000 population, the sixth highest in the world – but many times the rate in other developed nations. Of developed nations, only Greece, Austria, […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about COVID-19 in the fall of 2025
We are in the middle of a COVID uptick. These upticks now happen a few times a year. It will likely be a few more years before COVID-19 infections settle into a more stable pattern, like influenza, so it is worth commenting when an uptick happens, so people know what to expect and how to plan. […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about RFK, Jr. and nutrition
In a recent Wall Street Journal Opinion piece, published just before he fired the CDC Director, our HHS Secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr, argued that physicians should be taught about nutrition. He cited some very nice statistics about how little nutritional education physicians get. Poor diet kills 500,000 people a year, RFK Jr wrote. So, he […]
Posted inColumns, Opinion
Dr. Michael Fine: Two kinds of crazy
The first part of this week’s comment is about health, not health care. RIPTA, the organization that runs the buses in Rhode Island, is planning the largest set of route cuts in its history – to save $17.6 million. (There was a public hearing on this in Newport on Tuesday.) These cuts seem like a […]
Posted inCity & Government
Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about maternity care
Kudos to everyone in Newport who turned out at the city council meeting Tuesday night, and to the city council for passing a resolution asking Brown Health to keep the maternity unit at Newport Hospital open. It’s crazy we are at this point in the US, where we have to worry about providing something as […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about who is what?
I went to physical therapy on Monday for my messed-up shoulder, and was a little disturbed when the receptionist said, Dr. X will see you now. A part of my brain said, I haven’t come to see a doctor — I’ve come to see a physical therapist. And then the other part of my brain […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about paying $10 per month for primary care
First, the good news: kudos to our legislature for focusing on primary care. Thanks to the work of Senator Pam Luria, Speaker Joe Shekarchi, Senate President Valarie Lawson, Attorney General Peter Neronha and many many others, some critical primary care bills – funding a new family medicine residency for Woonsocket, improving primary care reimbursement under Medicaid by […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about RFK Jr. and the ACIP
The news from Monday is that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.), the Secretary of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), just “retired” all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). He published an editorial in the Wall Street Journal to explain this. I’m not sure which is worse, his […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about medical school debt
Holy Harry and Louise, they are at it again. Now, everybody is talking about the health care mess in Rhode Island. You know it’s a mess when politicians, who are almost all lawyers, give news conferences and talk about how they are going to fix health care, and the experts they trot out are all lawyers as well, none […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about the Surgeon General of the United States
We have a new Surgeon General nominee, Casey Means, a health influencer and former doctor who replaces Janette Nesheiwat, an urgent care doctor and Fox News host, as the nominee. Dr. Nesheiwat was suddenly reassigned to help RKF Jr., the erstwhile HHS secretary, in other ways, because she was criticized by Laura Loomer (who apparently […]
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Dr. Michael Fine – What’s Crazy about Health Care and Intelligence: Artificial and just lacking
I want a T-shirt that says Artificial Intelligence Isn’t. I spent a very long twenty minutes on a Zoom this week with a surgeon-turned-tech-entrepreneur from Stanford, who was trying to persuade me that the new software he’s developing is going to save primary care. Artificial intelligence is better than humans at making diagnoses, he tried to […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about 25,000 people losing their doctors
You may have heard that 25,000 people in Rhode Island are losing their primary care doctors because a large practice called Anchor Medical is closing its doors. Not my problem, you might think. Anchor is in Warwick, Providence and Lincoln. Not in Newport, Middletown, or Portsmouth. Or Jamestown. Or South Kingston. I still have my […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about the HHS
Ok, Chicken Little. Is the health care sky falling? Since Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr) has announced the departure of about 20,000 of the 80,000 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) employees, my health professional and policy colleagues are predicting doom and disaster. And it’s not just the HSS employees: hospitals, universities, […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about chickens, eggs, and bird flu
So our fearless health care leader, the guy with the worm in his brain, is going around saying that we should let bird flu run rampant, run its course, kill the susceptible chickens and that way we’ll be left with a national chicken flock that is resistant to bird flu. Is this crazy? Or does it make […]
Posted inColumns, Environment & Health, Opinion
Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about Medicaid
Get out the earplugs and blindfolds, Susie, they are at it again. Brothers and sisters, get ready for another round of yelling about Medicaid, which will be all heat and no light. As some of us know, the mean Republicans have committed themselves to cut $880 billion out of the federal budget over the next ten […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about hospital galas
So it’s hospital gala time again. You know the drill. Fancy invitation. Black tie optional event. A thousand people in a convention center or hotel ballroom. A high-powered committee on the invite, most of whom have nothing to do with planning the event itself, and sometimes bold-faced names who serve as honorary chairs, whatever that means. Adequate food. Too many self-congratulatory […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about saying Covid was a lab accident
So we’ve had regime change, and the new party line is that Covid was a lab accident. The CIA, which may or may not have anybody working there by the time this is published, now says they think the Covid was caused by a lab leak — but that is a “low confidence” determination, which is bureaucratic-speak […]
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Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about answering the telephone
I’ve now tried twice to make an appointment for a colonoscopy with a gastroenterologist. I also had to call Blue Cross, got put on hold after having to enter a zillion numbers and pressing 2 for this and three for that, and then 25 minutes later got called back by a nice young human! These are the […]
Posted inColumns
Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about killing managed care executives in the street
Full disclosure: I hate United Health Care and have hated them for thirty-five years since they bought out Ocean State Physicians Health Plan and became the second-largest health insurer in Rhode Island in the late 1980s. I think they are predatory and manipulative and leverage market power inappropriately in pursuit of profit, making a critical public […]