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Grab a coffee, sit back and enjoy the read – it’s a long one! I want to let you know up front that this article is written purely from the heart and has not been critiqued for publication. This was done intentionally as this is the authentic me. Recent events of hatred amongst different groups in the US is what sparked me to write this. I'm writing this because I have NEVER understood how a person could feel such disdain for someone that they don’t even know personally, but as of late I...

“With all the stories of heroism and tragedy in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, one group of people have been left out of sight and out of our hearts: the incarcerated men and women in our federal correctional facilities. While Texas and Florida authorities safely relocated most of the inmates in the state prisons, the men and women who were locked in our federal prisons were not so fortunate. The Federal Bureau of Prisons stated it did not intend to evacuate its facilities in the...

“The death penalty is costing the cash-strapped state of Louisiana tens of millions of dollars a year. But there’s one state employee who’s massively profiting off its continued existence. Hugo Holland’s fingerprints are on the bulk of Louisiana’s recent death sentences. He’s been hired by over a dozen district attorneys to prosecute death penalty cases at a rate that pays him more than Governor John Bel Edwards. Holland spent two decades as an assistant district attorney at the Caddo Parish...

"The front-desk clerk told him that he needed to show identification in order to reserve a room. Rodriguez-Juarez handed over the only thing he had — a Mexican voter ID card. Six hours later, he was lying on the bed, watching TV, when he heard a knock at the door. He opened it. Three agents from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement were waiting for him. When asked, Rodriguez-Juarez admitted that he wasn’t authorized to be in the United States. He’s currently being held at the immigration...

My name is Rebekah Couch and I am a former teen mother of five children, the youngest child being my only clean & sober pregnancy allowed to remain in my care. I am a survivor of multiple sexual assaults and was afflicted with untreated mental health issues as an adolescent. My destructive journey began with self-medicating and illegal activities in Jr. High and a daily cocaine addiction by the age of fifteen that eventually advanced to methamphetamine abuse. My addiction and criminal...

"A new initiative by the National Parks Service seeks to designate sites for their historic significance in the Reconstruction era. It's a bold and vital move for an agency that has only recently begun to seriously address the racial complexities of the Civil War. During the restive years following the Civil War, the Era of Reconstruction —often referred to as the nation's Second Founding or the first Civil Rights Movement—America saw a virulent backlash from white supremacists in response...

Boston, MA On Boston’s “Methadone Mile,” the city’s opioid users cluster around a few-block-stretch, where they find some support, and a sweeping range of treatment services. They are also out of sight of the rest of the city. Michael Young, 40, stands on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard. On his left, cars whir past; on his right, about two dozen people line up along the chain link fence overlooking Boston’s Interstate 93, some drifting in and out of...

"Boys aren't meant to even cry, but I can assure you I've seen plenty of them do it - and I've even been to that point myself," Wally Newman, a farmer for over 40 years, says as he vows to do his bit to tackle the high suicide rates in rural WA. Financial stress, remoteness, loneliness and isolation are the factors that see more people taking their own lives in the country than in metropolitan WA. Topping a national average, suicide is the leading cause of death for West Australians aged...

"Loneliness is hazardous to your health—and more psychologists and doctors are calling for a public-health campaign to fight it. “This has been underappreciated in the past,” says Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, “but cumulative data over hundreds of studies with millions of participants provides robust evidence of the importance of social connections for physical health and risk for premature mortality.” Social isolation,...

"It is relatively early on a summer evening, just after sunset. From my bed, I notice a shadow of a spindly branch dancing across the corner of the bedroom wall. I get up and close the curtains tightly to make it disappear, careful not to step on my daughter, who’s camped on my bedroom floor, lying stiffly under the weighted anxiety blanket I’d made her. I don’t mind the shadow, but I know it will make it impossible for her to fall asleep. This is the fourth night in a row she’s spent here.

"Working in an ER poses constant challenges. There are the predictable ones such as dealing with sick people and their families, making clinical decisions and plans for patients, and contending with a busy workload in a crowded space with finite resources—trying to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people. There are also challenges that may be less obvious to those outside this work environment: the difficulty of self-care during a shift (meeting one’s basic needs like...

This was just sent by the RACP “Paediatric Pot-Pourri”. It continues the developing and worrying themes presented at the recent NBPSA and CCCH satellites days before the RACP Congress. I cannot see any reason to imagine that these same outcomes do not also apply to those children living anywhere in the world where ACE’s are flooding into their lives. John Goldsmith “All paediatricians, particularly those with an interest in child development, are aware of the Adverse Childhood Experiences...