The rise of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a change in state law that will not only help make certain telemedicine services permanent but also give out-of-state physicians an easier pathway to join the Texas workforce.

After growing up on a South Alabama cattle farm in the 1940s and '50s, Martha Pugh, MD, went on to have a 51-year career in a different male-dominated field: medicine. Often one of few women in the building, whether at medical school or in hospitals, Dr. Pugh - now 82 and retired - found common ground with her male peers and went on to become one of the Texas Medical Association's longest-serving members for 42 years.

For the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) and many of the accountable care organizations (ACOs) that participated in it, 2019 was billed as a transition year. But data released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in September show Texas ACOs fared quite well last year - and a number of Texas physicians and ACO officials say the savings generated are worth the gruntwork that MSSP requires.

Thanks in large part to COVID-19, telemedicine has arrived. Where does it go from here? That was much of the focus of a Telehealth Virtual Bootcamp, an Aug. 29 presentation by the Telehealth Initiative that touched on technology, applications, and payment.

Many medical educators and students think the clinical skills portion of the USMLE needs to be reformed or eliminated.

Human health is inextricably connected with the health of the environment. Our actions to reduce the threats of climate change and global warming are key to our well-being and survival.

Under Texas law, physicians treating COVID-19 patients in a volunteer capacity have potential defenses against lawsuits that might arise from that care. But for non-volunteer physicians on the COVID battlefield - often working in harrowing, overloaded settings, high on patient count and low on equipment - the same liability shields don't exist. And with a resurgence in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations taking hold in June, the Texas Medical Association continued its pandemic-long push to extend liability protections to all frontline physicians, volunteer or not.

The need for improved training on hemorrhage control in emergencies has been building for decades. Physicians say it's just as important to reach out to the community to promote hemorrhage control in the same way CPR and other life-saving methods are promoted.

An opinion by the Texas attorney general will keep the Texas Optometry Board (TOB) from exerting influence over the practice of medicine - to a certain point.