Alyssa Burgart

1 week ago | usnews.com | Alyssa Burgart |Jennifer Conti

Adriana Smith was declared brain dead on Feb. 19. But that doesn’t mean the 30-year-old nurse and mother was allowed to die with dignity. According to Smith’s mother, the Atlanta hospital where she’s been treated has been keeping her daughter on a ventilator without considering her family’s wishes because of Georgia’s restrictive anti-abortion law. Smith was nine weeks pregnant when she was declared brain dead; the health of her fetus is uncertain.

Sep 28, 2024 | alyssaburgart.substack.com | Alyssa Burgart

I’d been pals with psychiatrist Jessi Gold for years when she asked if she could interview me while she researched her memoir about being a psychiatrist and mental health advocate. We talked about COVID and its impact on me and my career. We chatted about the mental, physical, and emotional burdens so many of us were facing in hospitals and clinics around the country. Then therapy came up.

Sep 26, 2024 | bioethicstoday.org | Alyssa Burgart

There isn’t enough Ozempic for everyone who wants it.  People with health conditions like type 2 diabetes and severe obesity should get it before people who hope to lose a few pounds. As the new ‘miracle drug’ for weight loss, Ozempic is one of the most popular new drugs in America. This has come mostly from the media, celebrities, and TikTok influencers praising it for its short-term effects, but not from experts. The FDA approved the top-selling GLP-1 agonist in 2017 to treat diabetes.

Jul 28, 2024 | bioethicstoday.org | Alyssa Burgart

In 2015, an exposé in The New York Times Magazine brought national attention to Anna Stubblefield’s sexual assault trial. Stubblefield, a white Rutgers University philosophy professor specializing in critical race and disability studies, raped a non-verbal Black man with cerebral palsy named Derrick Johnson, who is legally incapable of providing sexual consent. After a complicated legal process, Stubblefield pleaded guilty to rape in 2018.

Jun 13, 2024 | bioethicstoday.org | Alyssa Burgart

Author’s note on language: Many different terms are used to describe people from Latin America or with Latin American heritage. I prefer “Latine,” and I use this term throughout unless I am referring to someone else’s work or chosen term. The first time someone referred to me as her “Latina friend” (with the subtext that I was her only Latina friend), my immediate thought was, “You need more friends.” How could I possibly be her only Latine friend? Yet, underrepresentation is common in bioethics.