The following is a records of the podcast episode:
Rachael Robertson:Hey, listeners. Invite back to MedPod Today, the podcast series where MedPage Today press reporters share much deeper insight into the week’s greatest health care stories. I’m your host, Rachael Robertson.
First up today we’re talking with Sophie Putka about her reporting on reproductive health care in New Mexico I’ll share about a brand-new research study letter about movie representations of doctors Kristina Fiore shares the most current updates on vaccine suggestions
It’s been a little over a year considering that the Supreme Court reversed Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Texas passed stringent restrictions right now, leaving clients there without any access to abortion care. New Mexico is the only state surrounding Texas that hasn’t likewise prohibited abortion. The states share a long border, and clients in some cases drive over 1,000 miles from Texas to New Mexico to get care. Planned Parenthood of New Mexico has in fact needed to cut down on its other services to maintain– however not just due to the fact that of Dobbs
Sophie Putka brings us a report from New Mexico. Sophie, can you begin by informing us a little about New Mexico’s history with reproductive care?
Sophie Putka: Sure. I talked with Adrienne Mansanares, the head of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, who stated that New Mexico has a long history of securing reproductive health care. More just recently, throughout the pandemic, they made abortion care an important service and Texas did not. When the Supreme Court choice occurred, they doubled down and set aside federal government funds to develop a brand-new center throughout the border from El Paso to prepare for what they understood was coming from Texas.
Robertson: What occurred in New Mexico when Texas began to prohibit abortions?
Putka: So Texas ‘abortion prohibits begun even prior to the Supreme Court choice– all the method back in September of 2021 with a costs called SB8 that prohibited abortion after 6 weeks. After SB8, New Mexico began seeing clients from Texas flooding in. It got back at worse after the Dobbs choice in June of 2022 when Texas’ trigger restriction worked.
So in the10 months after, New Mexico saw more abortion clients from Texas alone than all the state’s abortion clients integrated in the 10 months prior to SB8. And this is all on top of a substantial stress on health care employees and personnel lacks from the pandemic.
Robertson: How has Planned Parenthood been dealing with reproductive care services in the area just recently?
Putka: Well, so those 3 things– SB8, Dobbs, and the pandemic– have actually made it so Planned Parenthood in New Mexico has really needed to restrict its reproductive services over the last couple of months. Things like regular health sees, STI [sexually transferred infections] tests, gos to for discomfort or infection, contraception, and post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV.
Somewhere in between 3 to 4 of the 5 Planned Parenthood areas in the state have actually needed to cut down on reproductive health services in the current weeks and months. In the meantime, they’re focusing on abortion care. Even so, when I last talked to Planned Parenthood, just one place was able to use procedural, or surgical, abortion. They simply do not have adequate clinicians to fulfill the requirement. And last time I inspected, just a couple of the 5 were providing medication abortion. Individuals can likewise get telehealth consultations for some things.
Planned Parenthood has actually been rerouting clients to New Mexico’s independent centers for those other services. The University of New Mexico’s center together with Whole Woman’s Health, which moved from Texas, both informed me that their wait times are really brief– not just for those other services, however likewise for abortion care.
Robertson: Thanks a lot, Sophie.
Putka:Thank you.
Okay, Rachael, now it’s my rely on ask you concerns about a brand-new research study letter inJAMA Internal Medicine. A group of scientists evaluated motion picture representations of medical professionals from the previous 3 years– 1990 to2020 There had to do with 2,300 characters in overall, and the authors discovered that females comprised less than 20% of doctor characters and films.
So why did scientists choose to measure this pattern in the very first location?
Robertson: Yeah, so it’s not especially unexpected that females doctors are underrepresented in movie. I talked with 2 of the research study authors and they both stress how seeing yourself represented is necessary. Bismarck Odei, who was among the authors, informed me that seeing a Black doctor in movie impacted his own choice to pursue medication.
In reality, ladies are over half of medical trainees, and a growing portion of practicing medical professionals; 2022 information from the Association of American Medical Colleges reveal that about 37% of doctors are females– which is growing. In amount, media representations of medical professionals do not in fact show what the occupation appears like.
Putka:Got it. What other patterns did their analysis expose?
Robertson: A massive80% of doctor characters were guys, and the huge bulk of those characters were white. In the previous 3 years, there were just 22 circumstances where ladies doctors were a protagonist. In 20 of those cases, that female was white, and just two times was the lead doctor character a female of color.
The scientists likewise discovered that 70% of films with a doctor character just had actually males represented as physicians. And if there was more than one physician depicted, it was most likely that there would likewise be a lady medical professional. Plus, motion pictures that are ranked G or PG were most likely to depict all doctor characters as guys compared to motion pictures ranked PG-13 or R.
Putka:Wow. How does this research study letter line up with previous research study?
Robertson: I consulted with Professor Vesta Silva, who teaches both interaction and worldwide health, and she states that motion pictures tend to drag television– which’s both scripted television and truth television programs. It makes sense that movie does not show what the medical occupation in fact looks like.
Silva likewise explained some intriguing constraints to the research study. The authors utilized binaries when classifying both race and gender, and utilizing simply white or non-white does not catch the subtlety of the racial breakdowns of motion pictures. Other research study on television has actually revealed that global characters, Asian, and Hispanic medical professionals are all underrepresented compared to the real numbers in the field. The research study likewise didn’t state whether the representation of a doctor character was favorable or unfavorable, and Silva states clearly that truly affects how that representation matters. The authors state that future research study needs to take a look at more particular identities like various races, ethnic backgrounds, and genders, and take a look at some patterns broken down that method.
Putka: Really fascinating. Thanks, Rachael.
Robertson:The FDA and CDC have yet to weigh in on fall COVID boosters. Specialists in transmittable illness and public health are currently talking about who need to get them and who may not require them. With us now is Kristina Fiore to discuss her story about who ought to get a COVID vaccine this fall.
So Kristina, where do we stand with fall COVID boosters at this moment?
Kristina Fiore: Hey, Rachael. Back in June, an FDA advisory committee suggested that all boosters target the XBB family trees of COVID– in specific, XBB.1.5., however that’s no longer the dominant version. We’re still seeing Omicron family trees control. Therefore specialists believe that this monovalent increase will be an excellent match.
The FDA still has yet to license these boosters. And after that after that, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, will need to make their suggestions on who must get them. ACIP just recently arranged a conference for September 12, so we can anticipate that the FDA will license the booster simply quickly prior to that.
Robertson:Hmm. What do the specialists believe that the CDC is going to advise?
Fiore: So, obviously, there’s hesitancy to anticipate how the CDC and the ACIP will act, however one medical professional informed me that there will likely be, quote, “threat conversation about whether to make a more graded suggestion for more youthful individuals.”
So I spoke to professionals from the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American Public Health Association. And even there, I was rather stunned to discover that they didn’t always believe that everybody requires a COVID booster this season.
So there’s no doubt that high-risk individuals, consisting of the senior, individuals with persistent conditions, individuals who are immune jeopardized, and even pregnant individuals– those individuals need to get a conclusive suggestion to get the most recent booster.
But when it pertains to more youthful, much healthier individuals, professionals stated it’s unclear that they require one. I’ll offer you a quote from Dr. Georges Benjamin, who is the executive director of the American Public Health Association, and he stated, quote, “the excellent news is that if you’ve had the complete main series of the vaccine and bivalent booster, or you are immunized and contaminated, you have considerable defense versus getting extremely ill and passing away.”
Robertson:So how about young kids? Are they going to require a booster?
Fiore: So once again, the belief appears to be that they do not require one. Paul Offit, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, has actually argued that the objective of a vaccine is to avoid hospitalization and death, due to the fact that we’re simply not going to avoid transmission and moderate disease. Here’s a quote from Offit: He stated, “Why does a healthy 12- year-old with 3 dosages of vaccine require another dosage? There would need to be defense versus serious illness, and I simply do not see that proof.”
And a great deal of other specialists concurred with him, and they all kept in mind that a kid who is ill or immune jeopardized– now that’s a various story, and they need to certainly be safeguarded with a booster. That’s where the specialists in contagious illness and public health stand, and we’ll see what CDC states on September 12.
Robertson: Awesome. Thank you a lot, Kristina. We’ll speak with you once again then.
And that’s it for today. If you like what you heard, leave us an evaluation anywhere you listen to podcasts, and hit subscribe if you have not currently. I’ll see you once again quickly.
This episode was hosted by Rachael Robertson and produced by Greg Laub Our visitors were MedPage Today press reporters Sophie Putka, Rachael Robertson, and Kristina Fiore Hyperlinks to the stories remain in the program notes.
MedPod Today is a production of MedPage Today For more details about the program, take a look at medpagetoday.com/podcasts
