Rethinking medicine's approach to miscarriage, writing in medicine, plus big developments in Medicare

August has slipped away on us! Happy Thursday, everyone – Ryan Fitzgerald and Alexander Bois-Spinelli here with your much-needed “Weekly Update.”

Before we jump in, we’d love to remind you that next week is our Future Summit. We have stellar speakers like Surgeon General Jerome Adams, BioNTech SE CEO Ugur Sahin, Professor Joanne Liu, and writer/actor Seth Rogen joining us. It’s all virtual and free for STAT+ subscribers. Join us!?

Now, let’s hop to it…?

Changing medicine’s approach to miscarriage?

The philosophy behind Barbara Toppin's approach to miscarriage is simple: Treat miscarriages like a medical problem, not just a fact of life. Toppin, who is a physician and founding partner of Adefris & Toppin Women’s Specialists in Minnesota, asks patients about their history of pregnancy loss, whether their immediate family members have developed heart disease or had strokes, and offers a number of tests that could reveal things that make a pregnancy harder to progress.

Freelancer Sadia Rafiquddin explains how Toppin and other providers across the country are trying to rewrite medicine’s approach to miscarriage.

Big developments in Medicare

The feds have started penalizing Medicare Advantage insurers that have a common problem — faulty technology systems are leading to people paying more for care and coverage than they should be.?

Big news came on Tuesday when Medicare announced the list of 10 drugs that will be subject to price negotiation in 2026 under the Inflation Reduction Act. Rachel Cohrs and Matthew Herper have details on the list. This marks the first time that Medicare will have any ability to use its vast size to negotiate for lower prices. But who are the winners and losers? Turn to Matthew Herper and Damian Garde ’s story for those answers.?

Writing medicine

Being a health care worker is hard, emotionally taxing work. But Laurel Braitman, an author and teacher at Stanford School of Medicine, believes that writing about difficult experiences and sharing them can help.

That’s why, for the last few years, she has been hosting "Writing Medicine" workshops where medical students and professionals are encouraged to do just that.?

“Medicine and science can be such challenging and rigid forms,” said Jenny Qi, a writer, poet and former cancer researcher. “Often we’re not encouraged, or if anything, we’re discouraged from thinking too hard about our feelings or overanalyzing our experiences because it can make the job harder to do.”

Outcomes, sorted by sex of surgeon

A new study in JAMA suggests that patients treated by female surgeons have lower rates of adverse postoperative long-term outcomes including death compared to similar patients treated by male surgeons. Long-term is defined as any outcome within 90 days or within a year. Our new Sharon Begley Fellow Deborah J. Balthazar has the story.?

New depression treatment?

More news from JAMA. Results from a randomized clinical trial showed that a

single dose of psilocybin may have enduring benefits for people with major depressive disorder.

Several prior studies have suggested that psilocybin, the psychedelic compound produced by certain types of mushrooms, could be a promising way to treat major depression in people for whom antidepressants or counseling aren’t effective.

Annalisa Merelli has more.?

That's all we have for today!

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