WCOE: Brittany Maynard’s Death with Dignity, Election Results and the ACA, and Susan Gubar’s “Not Talking About Medical Mistakes”

Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman with brain cancer who became an advocate for the “death with dignity” movement took her life this week. Marcia Angell wrote about “The Brittany Maynard effect: How she is changing the debate on assisted dying” in The Washington Post, as did Sarah Kliff in “Brittany Maynard and the debate about death that America needs to have” at Vox.com. And oncologist Don Dizon reflected on Maynard’s death and how he defines “A Good Death” in his ASCO Connection post.

Stuart Butler, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, analyzed the impact of the 2014 elections on the Affordable Care Act implementation in “Election Results 2014: Biggest Changes to Health Care Will Happen Outside of Congress.” Sarah Varney delved into the failure of the Affordable Care Act in Mississippi in a lengthy piece in The Atlantic, “How Obamacare Went South In Mississippi.” Finally, Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News analyzed the Supreme Court’s decision to consider a challenge to the tax credits offered under the Affordable Care Act.

Rick Pazdur and Tatiana Prowell from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wrote about “Getting Potentially Life-Saving Drugs to High-Risk Breast Cancer Patients Faster” in an FDA Voice blog post.

Finally, in her New York Times; Living with Cancer series, Susan Gubar wrote about the consequences of “Not Talking About Medical Mistakes.” She described the complications she endured after a surgical mistake and said, “Truth-telling, in language I could understand, would have boosted my confidence in the postoperative care. Without fixing the physical problems, it would have relieved me psychologically. Like many people, I find it easier to forgive a human failure than an anonymous smokescreen. Why is it so difficult for patients and doctors to discuss surgical accidents and complications without violating professional codes of conduct and arousing fears of legal liability?”