Mandy Oaklander | August 08, 2026

If you need a glimmer of good news to kickstart your weekend, consider this heartening recent update from health officials in Michigan, the state hardest hit by the Cyclospora outbreak: Residents there "can resume routine guidance for consuming lettuce and salad greens as new cyclosporiasis case reports and related emergency department visits are on the decline.”

That’s great news for Michiganders—and an encouraging sign as health officials continue to track the outbreak across the country.

TODAY’S TOPICS

Lessons from loss
Got a question for us?
A fancy solve for burnout

WEEKEND ESSAY

What loss teaches us about living

By Dr. Lucy McBride

Atichart Amatyakul—Getty Images

The morning my brother Harry was airlifted from I-81 to the trauma center, I drove toward the hospital barely able to breathe. At a stoplight I noticed the people in their cars around me—a man checking his hair in the rearview mirror, a child kicking his legs in his car seat. Ordinary people doing ordinary things. Which is when it hit me that this was not a dream. I’d seen Harry the day before. Whole, alive, himself. It was the last time I’d see him that way.

When I got to the ICU, the doctor offered reassurances: “It’s still very early,” and “We’re doing everything we can”—the kinds of things doctors say to families in shock. I know this because I’ve said these things to patients myself. But I took one look at my baby brother—intubated, sedated, badly banged up—and I knew this was it.

I’m a primary care physician. Mortality, even if distant or hypothetical, is implicit in every patient encounter. What else is a doctor’s job if not to forestall death and improve life while it’s being lived? For 25 years I’ve helped people live, and I’ve also helped them die. Before I entered that ICU, I thought I understood that nothing is permanent. But there’s a difference between knowing a thing in your head and feeling it in your body.

Read the full essay here.

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PLEASE ADVISE

Ask the health team

Have a burning health or wellness question? Wondering how to handle a tricky social situation? Please write to healthmatters@time.com, and we might tackle it in a future edition of the newsletter.

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WHAT WE’RE READING

Burned-out executives are paying thousands of dollars to attend retreats where they rethink success, mortality, and what comes after climbing the corporate ladder, reports Lauren Weber for the Wall Street Journal.
The U.S. health care system sometimes relies on children to be caregivers for ailing parents, a role that forces them to miss school and that adds significant stress to their lives, Helen Ouyang reports for the New York Times Magazine.
Why aren’t we killing ticks like we kill mosquitoes? That’s the question Sarah Zhang asks in the Atlantic.

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