What Do We Owe Doctors and Nurses?

The Virus Has Exposed the Weaknesses of American Healthcare; to Build a Stronger System We Need to Care for Caregivers

In late March, a mutual friend of ours called with a grim picture of the situation on the ground at the Queens hospital where he works. New York City had not yet experienced the peak of the outbreak, but the hospital already had 140 COVID-positive patients, 35 of them on ventilators. And there were only five ventilators left.

Our friend, a physician, had just witnessed the death of a 27-year-old man with no chronic conditions. In his hospital, doctors were already making decisions about who to put on ventilators. “It’s …

Why Are There So Many Filipino Nurses in California? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Why Are There So Many Filipino Nurses in California?

After Filling a Nursing Shortage in the 1960s, Immigrant Caregivers Have Changed the Practice and the Politics of Health Care

In California hospitals today, immigration has diversified not only the state’s patient population, but the demographics of its caregivers as well.

It is now commonplace to be cared for at the …

The Black Nurses Who Were Forced to Care for German Prisoners of War

Prohibited From Tending to White GIs, the Women Felt Betrayed by the Country They Sought to Serve

On the summer afternoon in 1944 that 23-year-old Elinor Powell walked into the Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown Phoenix, it never occurred to her that she would be refused service. …