This week we're deviating from the norm, because as this episode airs, Melissa has defended her dissertation and is officially Dr. Melissa Anne DuBois.

To mark the occasion, Jamie went and got nerdy about where the PhD actually comes from — and it turns out the history is contested, medieval, and extremely useful the next time someone tells you nurses shouldn't use the title "doctor."

Nursing PhD enrollment has declined for the eleventh consecutive year, to 4,077 students in a workforce of 5.6 million. That's less than a tenth of a percent of all nurses in the US! We need more nurses with a PhD in nursing science, so contact us if you are a nurse considering this — we'd like to talk with you about it.

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An executive order from July 2025 calls street homelessness a psychiatric problem and prescribes involuntary commitment. In this episode, Jamie and Melissa break down EO 14321 Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets.

They discuss what the HUD data actually shows, how grant money becomes leverage, why defunding harm reduction and Housing First backfires, and what the June 2026 DOJ memo narrowing the interpretation of Olmstead v. L.C. means for community-based care.

Head over to our Substack to join the conversation.

The views and opinions expressed on Nursing the Nation are our own and do not represent those of our employers, academic institutions, or any organization we're affiliated with.

The President calls TrumpRx "the most transformative healthcare initiative of all time." So what does it actually do? In this episode, Jamie and Melissa pull apart the branded drug-discount rollout — and find a website that links you to manufacturer coupons, not a pharmacy.

To understand why the same generic pill can cost $4 at one store and $19 at another, they follow the money through pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) — the middlemen who now control roughly 80% of the market through rebate games, spread pricing, and the conflict of interest baked into companies that own the insurer, the PBM, and the pharmacy all at once.

They break down the structural fights that could actually change things (the bipartisan Break Up Big Medicine Act; Tennessee's Fair Rx Act and the CVS lawsuit that followed), why TrumpRx explicitly locks out Medicaid patients and won't count toward your deductible, and the now-infamous claim that prices were cut "600%" — a number that's mathematically impossible and rated Pants on Fire.

TLDR: A nurse's-eye view of what TrumpRx does for most Americans: basically nothing.

Have a TrumpRx story of your own? Email us or leave a note on Substack. Follow us at nursingthenation.substack.com.

The views and opinions expressed on Nursing the Nation are our own and do not represent those of our employers, academic institutions, or any organization we're affiliated with.