What’s the Best Way to Retain a Health Worker? Just Ask Her!

The world currently has a shortage of some 4 million health workers, amplified by a complete mismatch between where health workers are stationed and where they are most needed.

Skepticism + Playfulness = SwitchPoint?

Last Friday, I sat in the beautiful Haw River Ballroom in the enchanting town of Saxapahaw, North Carolina, with hundreds of eclectic, savvy, and well-traveled individuals at SwitchPoint 2012—IntraHealth’s first annual conference, retreat, and concert on innovation and global health.

Letter to the Editor: Maurice Middleberg Defends Contraception as Preventive Medicine

Charles Krauthammer questioned the classification of contraception as preventive medicine, stating that “categorizing pregnancy as a disease equivalent is a value decision disguised as science.”

Investing in US-Trained Health Workers: Kate Tulenko Responds to 'America Is Stealing the World's Doctors'

The most important solution is for the US to train more of its own health workers.

What USAID’s New Gender Equality and Female Empowerment Policy Means for Connecting Girls and Inspiring Futures in Health

Leading up to this year’s International Women’s Day, the U.S. Agency for International Development introduced a new policy to help women and girls participate fully in and benefit from development.

Medicine as a Weapon in Syria and Beyond

A recent editorial in The Lancet issued a dire warning to the international medical community: medicine is a weapon of war in Syria. It is just the latest in a series of reportsfrom across the Middle East on how medical care and medical professionals and facilities are being used to inflict politically-motivated violence.

How Can We Do Better by American Patients and Health Workers?

For the US to really meet patients’ needs and continue to offer high-quality care, many things have to change. One of these is education.

Meet Aimable: Living with HIV, Cultivating Hope

This year Aimable will learn his HIV-positive status at a session that will include his grandmother other HIV-positive children and their guardians.

UNACCEPTABLE: Health Workers as Pawns of Warfare

Last week, NPR ran a story that made me cringe, describing a major humanitarian group’s decision to stop treating patients from detention centers in Misrata, Libya. According to the report, “torture was so rampant that some detainees were brought for care only to make them fit for further interrogation.”

Finally, a Major Step Forward in Protecting Health Workers and Facilities

Despite firm standards rooted in the Geneva Conventions to protect health facilities, health workers, and the patients served during armed conflict, and to enable health professionals to act consistently with their ethical obligations, assaults on and interference with health functions are all too common in war.