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‘Diversity’ Doesn’t Include Disabled Veterans Like Me
Matthew Winans September 11, 2024 At college campuses nationwide, the newest students are starting class, but I’m not among them. Many medical schools rejected my application, and when I asked why, several told me that my service in our nation’s armed forces didn’t matter, and that I should have spent more time proving my commitment to “diversity” and “equity.” I served in the United States Army from 2012 to 2017. During my service, I intended to apply to the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, the military’s medical school, but health-related issues and a service-related disability cut my career short. After being honorably discharged, I set my sights on attending…
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‘I’m So Burned Out’: Fighting to See a Specialist Amplified Pain for Riverside County Woman
By Molly Castle Work OCTOBER 10, 2023 SAN JACINTO — Teresa Johnson can’t escape the pain. It’s as if she’s getting pierced by needles all over her body, all at once. At night, she sometimes jolts out of sleep thinking bedbugs are attacking her. But it’s just the unfailing pain — day in and day out. Johnson, 58, said her ordeal started in September 2022, when she went for a CT scan of her abdomen after a bout of covid-19. Though Johnson warned the lab she was allergic to iodine, she believes the lab tech used it in an injection, triggering an allergic reaction. She spent the next three weeks in…
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The hidden extra costs of living with a disability
Disability is often incorrectly assumed to be rare. However, global estimates suggest than one in seven adults has some form of disability. The term “disability” covers a number of functional limitations – physical, sensory, mental and intellectual. These can range from mild to severe and might affect someone at any time across the lifespan, from an infant born with an intellectual impairment to an older adult who becomes unable to walk or see. What is perhaps less well-known is that studies consistently show that people with disabilities are disproportionately poor. They are more likely to become poor and, when poor, are more likely to stay that way, because of barriers to getting an…
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Covid stole my Dad’s final months
OPINION: Because of the pandemic, I couldn’t visit him in his nursing home, and because of his dementia he couldn’t understand why. Mismanagement of this crisis has failed the elderly and caused incalculable hurt. By Alison McCook 11.09.2020 On September 16, my father died. He lived the last six months of his life entirely cut off from his family and friends. That’s because he was one of the 1.3 million people living in nursing homes across the country. He didn’t have Covid-19, but even though the disease didn’t take his life, it took his time. It took his last months away from him, during which he couldn’t enjoy the relationships…
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A Teachers Union Shaped CDC School Guidance. Is That a Problem?
The influence of the union has prompted debate over its role in scientific decision making. BY HANNAH THOMASY June 10, 2021 WHEN THE U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued much-anticipated guidelines for school reopening in February, some critics argued that the nation’s premier health agency had set unreasonably strict standards for schools to follow. But the two largest teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, long hesitant about reopening schools amid the Covid-19 pandemic, rallied in support of the document. “For the first time since the start of this pandemic, we have a rigorous road map, based on science, that our members can…
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The Freeway Flag
I was driving home today and saw a faded American flag hanging on a freeway bridge near Rancho Cucamonga. I figured it was probably from one of the local Marines that was killed last year in Kabul during our shameful exit from Afghanistan. So here’s my question: Why hasn’t anyone who played a part in this foreign policy disaster been fired? None of the high ranking military officers, cabinet secretaries, and other experienced officials were really held accountable for this debacle. Our military left billions of dollars in military equipment behind, abandoned a valuable airport, left Americans in Afghanistan, and the marines were killed on their watch. Nothing. I wonder…
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The Federal Government Gave Billions to America’s Schools for COVID-19 Relief. Where Did the Money Go?
The Education Department’s limited tracking of $190 billion in pandemic support funds sent to schools has left officials in the dark about how effective the aid has been in helping students. After the pandemic shut down schools across the country, the federal government provided about $190 billion in aid to help them reopen and respond to the effects of the pandemic. In the year and a half since millions of children were sent home, the Education Department has done only limited tracking of how the money has been spent. That has left officials in Washington largely in the dark about how effective the aid has been in helping students, especially those whose…
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For Advocate of Voters With Disabilities, Polls Present Obstacles
Arlene Schulman | Tuesday, November 3,2020 Edith Prentiss wheeled across the ramp into her polling site in Washington Heights on Election Day and sighed. She pointed to the incline between the ramp and doorway of the Moriah Senior Center in Washington Heights. “This ramp,” the longtime advocate said, “is state of the art but there’s not sufficient coverage.” A voter stumbled over the ramp as he entered. Prentiss called poll workers over to inspect what might seem like a minor inconvenience but can hinder or prevent people with disabilities from entering polling sites. The Americans with Disabilities Act 2016 checklist for accessible polling places includes accommodations for parking and stresses…
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A Boy Went to a COVID-Swamped ER. He Waited for Hours. Then His Appendix Burst.
To have so many ICU beds pressed into service for a single diagnosis is “unheard of,” said Dr. Hasan Kakli, an emergency room physician at Bellville Medical Center in Bellville, Texas, about an hour from Houston. “It’s approaching apocalyptic.”
