In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, medical supply shortages got so severe that nurses fashioned masks and gowns out of pool noodles and trash bags.

Many factors have been blamed: inadequate stockpiles, slow government action, equipment hoarding. But one that has been especially relevant—and is relevant again today as international tensions heat up—is US reliance on foreign personal protective equipment (PPE), supply chain experts told us.

The government invested more than $1 billion to bulk up domestic PPE manufacturing during that first pandemic year, but five years later, the companies that emerged from those efforts have mostly shut down, and the US still relies heavily on foreign manufacturers for PPE and other medical necessities. The American Hospital Association calculated in April the US imported over $75 billion in medical devices and supplies in 2024 alone.

Some experts worry this means the next public health emergency could send the country right back to March 2020.

“If we don’t change the trajectory we are in right now, we’re guaranteed to repeat the same thing,” Tinglong Dai, Bernard T. Ferrari professor of business at Johns Hopkins University, told Healthcare Brew.

See the latest installment in our Quarter Century Project here.—CC

Like it or not, people are using artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots as therapists.

A quick perusal of Reddit shows testimonies from users who swear by ChatGPT as a confidant, and several companies have designed chatbots specifically for this purpose. But there are also tales of AI stoking delusions and chatbots telling a user to “get rid of” his family.

As use of AI grows, regulators are struggling to keep up. Mental health experts told us AI can potentially fill gaps amid a shortage: A reported 53% of psychologists had no openings for new patients in a 2024 survey. But providers caution against relying on AI too heavily.

“There’s a mental health, global crisis,” Russell Fulmer, a licensed professional counselor and associate professor at Kansas State University, said. “AI can be a piece of that puzzle to help, and it will continue to gain ground and probably help us with things like diagnosis. But I don’t see it replacing [practitioners] because of that human connection that is needed.”

Is AI the new future for mental health treatment?—CC

Ever since he was a kid, Ryan Gibney, UCI Health’s associate medical director at its Orange, California, facility and an emergency medicine physician, knew he wanted to be a doctor.

But before that happened, he worked in the service industry for many years—and performed in a band—while he studied at med school. Once he took the plunge, he had a “meteoric rise” from residency to leadership, which includes serving as the incoming medical director of the health system’s new Irvine site, scheduled to open later this year.

Healthcare Brew spoke with Gibney about his career and what he’s hoping to accomplish in his new role.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How did you go from working in the hospitality industry to the hospital industry, and what did it teach you?

I moved out to California, where my mom had moved in the interim, and I ended up starting back in the service industry at a bar and restaurant in the area. It wasn’t until 2007 when I got married that I decided that looking longevity-wise and raising a family and that kind of career didn’t really kind of go hand in hand. And I did a very thorough self-inventory and said that I’m going to go back to college.

See the full conversation here.—NO