Course Description:   Why is American healthcare so expensive, while we lag behind the average healthcare of citizens in 10 comparable countries? Why do doctors tolerate this extreme dysfunction? Most importantly, what can be done to restore our healthcare to the level of other wealthy countries at a fair price? This course will provide an unflinching look behind American healthcare’s façade of singular excellence by a family physician and expert in national pharmaceutical litigation. We will discuss specific examples of what we know and don’t know about the benefits of cholesterol-lowering medications for people at different levels of cardiovascular risk, the known benefits and harmful effects of new drugs to treat early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, and other controversies. We will also discuss some concrete reforms that could achieve a more effective and efficient healthcare system. 

Location:  Harbor Club

Dates/Times:  Tuesdays Feb 20 to Mar 12, from 9:30 am - 10:45 am.  

Instructor:  Dr. John Abramson

After his residency in Family Medicine, Dr. John Abramson completed a two-year Robert Wood Johnson Fellowship, studying epidemiology, statistics, and research design. He served in the National Health Service Corps as a primary care physician in rural West Virginia (1977-1979) and worked as a family physician in a small town about an hour north of Boston (1982-2002). Dr. Abramson was Chairman of Family Medicine at Lahey Clinic, Burlington, MA, from 1994-2002, and Lecturer in Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School for more than 15 years. He also served as an expert in pharmaceutical litigation from 2004 to 2023. He is the author of Sickening:  How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It (2022, Mariner Books) and Overdosed America:  The Broken Promise of American Medicine (2004, HarperCollins).