— Memorable words gathered by MedPage Today’s team of reporters "I’m still troubled by his desperate requests to leave that place." -- A patient at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego reflecting on the cries of another patient who had been thereopens in a new tab or window for 1,193 days. "This is more than just an inconvenience; these are genuine medical issues." -- JoAnn Pinkerton, MD, from the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, stressing the

— "I'm jumping through hoops just to survive," exclaims one patient For over a year and a half, Tandra Cooper Harris and her husband, Marcus, both living with diabetes, have encountered countless difficulties in obtaining the medications necessary to manage their blood sugar levels. Without vital treatments like semaglutide (Ozempic) and other GLP-1 agonists, Cooper Harris experiences blackouts, lacks the energy to care for her grandchildren, and struggles to continue her job as

— We see them, we hear them, but we rarely react In the ICU, the fire alarm echoes in my ears. I lock eyes with my resident, her expression as blank as mine. A shared internal voice seems to ask, "Well, there’s no smoke, and I don’t see any flames, right?" Within a second, I’m back at my screen, hastening to finish my notes. The noise is unbearable, and the strobe lights just add to the discomfort. Yet, I don't really entertain the notion of an actual fire—these alarms blare all