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Last week, the Food and Drug Administration approved Omicron-specific vaccines and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed, recommending updated boosters for everyone age 12 and up who has gotten at least two doses of the original COVID vaccines. The message to a nation still struggling with the pandemic: The cavalry — in the form of a shot — is coming over the hill. (Celine Gounder and Elisabeth Rosenthal, 9/9)

Plasma is a physical manifestation of the body’s ability to bounce back. Albumin, immunoglobulins and fibrinogen, some of the key components of plasma, perform essential functions including transporting hormones, enzymes and vitamins, defending the body from infections, and controlling bleeding. Plasma therapies have many uses, among them helping high-risk patients weather illnesses like avian flu and Covid-19. (Vanessa Veselka, 9/9)

Norman Rockwell’s 1939 painting “When the Doctor Treats Your Child” depicts a family doctor with a stethoscope around his neck scribbling a prescription in front of three children, one sitting on his mother’s lap. The painting evokes the health care covenant: one doctor responsible for the family as well as for the community, whose professional ethics required unfaltering dedication to their patient’s well-being. (Peter A. Bonis, 9/9)

It was frightful news, because I had been so conscientious about my annual physical exams. I started getting them at 32 when I lived in Detroit. I had no particular reason to do so, and I knew no other Black men who scheduled physicals on the regular. (Justice B. Hill, 9/9)

Since my very first patient encounters at Harvard Medical School, I’ve seen how social inequity can limit the extent of medicine’s healing. I’ve seen patients forgo brain imaging due to financial challenges and defer a colonoscopy because of lack of transportation. I’ve seen patients’ health — and my ability to support these patients — deteriorate under the pressure of towering structural barriers. (LaShyra Nolen, 9/9)

Every person who has ever felt pain has their origin story, and I certainly have mine. While performing a bench press more than a decade ago when I was in medical school, I heard a loud click and felt my whole body go limp, and the weights came crashing down. As pain gripped my entire body in a vise, I was rushed to emergency room where I got intravenous painkillers and was told the pain would eventually disappear. (Haider Warraich, 9/8)

Back in July, federal regulators began requiring that health insurers disclose their prices for the services they cover both in- and out-of-network. The idea is to help health care consumers better understand what their co-pays and liabilities may be depending on where they go for care. (Arielle Kane, 9/9)