Despite its many challenges, Massachusetts health care remains the best in the world. It has the best institutions, the best thinkers, and the best government leaders.
Douglas S. Brown
Posted inOpinion
Tracing where Worcester’s ‘grit’ comes from
WORCESTER HAS BEEN long recognized as a “gritty” city in the heart of the Commonwealth. But what exactly does that mean and how did it get this moniker? Some have […]
Posted inOpinion
Learning firsthand the value of compassionate medicine
TWO HOURS BEFORE my dad’s funeral in November, I fell down my garage stairs. I was carrying trays of sandwiches that would nourish my extended family after the burial. Words […]
Posted inOpinion
Life lessons from my dad and my dog
THANKSGIVING WEEK was a painful one for me. In the course of four days, I lost my dog and my dad. A week that was supposed to be filled with […]
Posted inOpinion
Daniel Gookin and the full story of Thanksgiving
THIS WEEK MARKS the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving. That feast, which brought together Pilgrims and Native Americans, is celebrated as a moment of peace and togetherness. But lying […]
Posted inOpinion
At Mass General Brigham, when is enough enough?
ON AUGUST 19, 2003, I stood in the operating room of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. My wife was lying supine on a table in front of me and […]
Posted inOpinion
What our ‘anchor mission’ means for central Mass.
EARLIER THIS YEAR, UMass Memorial Health, the largest health care system in central Massachusetts, welcomed Harrington Hospital in Southbridge into its family. A merger of a community hospital into a […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Pilot program
On a hazy August day in 1983, with about seven miles of visibility, I took my first solo flight in a Piper Cherokee single engine aircraft. I was 20 years […]