What should we spend on health care?

For 5 years there has been debate about the need to re-organize the structure of the U.K. National Health Service. At last legislation has been agreed and the NHS Reorganization Act takes effect from 1 April 1974. In this article the author discusses a variety of relevant factors which he believes should be taken into consideration in implementing the Act.     

Commentary: Ms. Lubell's complaint (a fictional clinical record)

Imagining a case from the viewpoint of a family member rather than of the patient redirects moral attention to issues overlooked when the patient is the focus of concern.     

Commentary. Mid-life confessions

Although he recalls times in his work as a hospital chaplain when he cared for people superficially, the author notes that patients themselves ministered to him, teaching him more compassionate ways to serve.     

Racial and Ethnic Variation in the Relationship Between Student Loan Debt and the Transition to First Birth

The present study employs discrete-time hazard regression models to investigate the relationship between student loan debt and the probability of transitioning to either marital or nonmarital first childbirth using the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97). Accounting for nonrandom selection into student loans using propensity scores, our study reveals that the effect of student loan debt on the transition to motherhood differs among white, black, and Hispanic women. Hispanic women holding student loans experience significant declines in the probability of transitioning to both marital and nonmarital motherhood, whereas black women with student loans are significantly more likely to transition to any first childbirth. Indebted white women experience only a decrease in the probability of a marital first birth. The results from this study suggest that student loans will likely play a key role in shaping future demographic patterns and behaviors.     

Segregated we stand? The mutilated Greeks' debate at Persepolis, 330 BC

As Alexander reached Persepolis in January 330 BC, he encountered a large group of newly released Greek captives who had been severely mutilated during Persian enslavement. Alexander agreed to aid their resettlement. The men debated whether to return to Greece with money in hand and disperse to their old families, who might be shocked by their appearance, or to stay as a mutually supportive group and receive benefits in Persia with their local partners. Detailed review is made of the historicity of this story recorded by Quintus Curtius, Diodorus Siculus and Justin. Evidence is presented of groupings of disabled people in Middle Eastern antiquity, the transmission of stories about Alexander, textual and linguistic analysis, social responses to severe disability, and truth or exaggeration of war atrocities or gross physical abuse from antiquity and modern times.