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Dhruv Khullar head shot - The New Yorker

Dhruv Khullar

Dhruv Khullar is a contributing writer at The New Yorker covering medicine, health care, and politics. He is also a practicing physician and an associate professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, where he serves as an associate director of the Cornell Health Policy Center and as the director of the Physicians Foundation Center for the Study of Physician Practice and Leadership. His research, which focusses on value-based care, health-care consolidation, and medical innovation, has been published in JAMA and The New England Journal of Medicine. Khullar began his work in journalism in 2013, and has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic. He earned his medical degree from the Yale School of Medicine and completed his medical training at Massachusetts General Hospital. He also received a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a fellow at the Center for Public Leadership.

What “The Pitt” Taught Me About Being a Doctor

It’s as if the show’s creators absorbed every important conversation in health care today—and somehow transfigured it into good television.

The Role of Doctors Is Changing Forever

Some patients don’t trust us. Others say they don’t need us. It’s time for us to think of ourselves not as the high priests of health care but as what we have always been: healers.

The Undermining of the C.D.C.

The Department of Health and Human Services maintains that it is hewing to “gold standard, evidence-based science”—doublespeak that might unsettle Orwell.

A New Era of Vaccine Federalism

As confidence in the C.D.C. wanes, states are asserting more control over their vaccine policies, creating a fragmented public-health system.

If A.I. Can Diagnose Patients, What Are Doctors For?

Large language models are transforming medicine—but the technology comes with side effects.

R.F.K., Jr., Brings More Chaos to COVID Policy and the C.D.C.

When MAGA met MAHA, Donald Trump vowed that Kennedy would “go wild on health.” Promises made, promises kept.

How an Ultra-Rare Disease Accelerates Aging

Teen-agers with progeria have effectively aged eight or nine decades. A cure could help change millions of lives—and shed light on why we grow old.

Can A.I. Find Cures for Untreatable Diseases—Using Drugs We Already Have?

For many medical conditions, lifesaving treatments may be hiding in plain sight.

How to Think About COVID-19 Vaccines in the Era of R.F.K., Jr.

The coronavirus may no longer be a leading danger to our health. That doesn’t mean it can’t hurt us, or that we don’t need to protect ourselves.

What to Make of Biden’s Prostate-Cancer Diagnosis

Plus: Trump’s Surgeon General nominee and MAHA; and what Israeli officials are privately saying about starvation in Gaza.

A Life-Changing Scientific Study Ended by the Trump Administration

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., declared chronic diseases an “existential threat.” Then his agency terminated one of the world’s longest-running diabetes trials.

Dhruv Khullar on Oliver Sacks’s “The Case of Anna H.”

Wonder and observation propelled not only Sacks’s writing but also his doctoring. He wanted to chronicle even when he couldn’t cure.

Trump’s Agenda Is Undermining American Science

Research funded by the federal government has found useful expression in many of the defining technologies of our time. This Administration threatens that progress.

Investigating What Happens to the Body in Space

From the daily newsletter: a doctor goes to Mars. Plus: investigating celebrity yearbooks; Merve Emre on friendship books; and what will happen to the Department of Education?

Can the Human Body Endure a Voyage to Mars?

In the coming years, an unprecedented number of people will leave planet Earth—but it’s becoming increasingly clear that deep space will make us sick.

Why Is the American Diet So Deadly?

A scientist tried to discredit the theory that ultra-processed foods are killing us. Instead, he overturned his own understanding of obesity.

The Gilded Age of Medicine Is Here

Health insurers and hospitals increasingly treat patients less as humans in need of care than consumers who generate profit.

The Fundamental Problem with R.F.K., Jr.,’s Nomination to H.H.S.

Kennedy has many bad ideas. Yet the irony of our political moment is that his more reasonable positions are the ones that could sink his candidacy.

Trump’s Health, and Ours

Studies increasingly suggest that a healthy nation depends on a healthy democracy.

How Machines Learned to Discover Drugs

The A.I. revolution is coming to a pharmacy near you.