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He infuses mercy into practice of medicine

July 7th 2009 | in Boston Globe, Newsroom

The Boston Globe – 12/8/2008
By Billy Baker – Globe Correspondent
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Thirty years later, Dr. Stephen Bergman is comfortable shifting his posture back into appraisal position. Everything has come full circle, he thinks, and he’s just put the bookend on a ride that began in 1978 when he wrote a book, under the pen name [...]

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Golfing with Updike

July 6th 2009 | in Boston Globe, Newsroom, Op-Ed

Boston Globe
July 6, 2009
John and I met in 1979 at a writer’s party, shortly after my first novel came out. My impression was clouded by nervous awe, but luckily it was summer and our conversation turned to golf, John’s passion, and my sport at our shared alma mater, Harvard. A week later I was [...]

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Getting in the way of a doctor’s calling – E. Goodman

June 19th 2009 | in Boston Globe, Newsroom

By Ellen Goodman | June 19, 2009
THERE WILL BE time to talk about costs and coverage, about public and private plans, about reasoning and rationing in healthcare reform. So the president began this week speaking to the workers in the system: doctors.
At the meeting of the American Medical Association, Barack Obama tackled the [...]

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The pitting of doctor against doctor

June 7th 2009 | in Boston Globe, Newsroom, Op-Ed

Boston Globe
June 7, 2009
THE REASONS for the shortage of primary-care doctors have been clearly described: low pay, long hours, the crossword puzzle of insurance forms required to get paid – which leads to three administrative assistants for every doctor. But the issue is being framed using a classic tactic of the private insurance industry: in [...]

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Valor and fear in surgeons

October 13th 2008 | in Boston Globe, Newsroom, Op-Ed

By Stephen Bergman | October 13, 2008
RECENTLY A Boston hospital was cited for “hours violations” by the Accreditation Committee for Graduate Medical Education (one of 227 violators this year), and was told it would jeopardize its accreditation as a surgery training program if it did not correct the problems – which it acknowledged [...]

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A strike for better healthcare

August 5th 2007 | in Boston Globe, Newsroom, Op-Ed

By Stephen J. Bergman | August 5, 2007
SOON AFTER HMO/managed care came to Massachusetts in the late ’80s, I got a call from a patient I had admitted to the 28-day alcohol unit at the hospital. He said that he was being discharged after three days because that was all that the HMO [...]

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