Farzon A. Nahvi is an emergency medicine physician and the author of “Code Gray: Death, Life, and Uncertainty in the ER.”
For many health-care workers watching the Super Bowl in recent years, the hardest hits have often come not during gameplay but in the commercial breaks.
Emergency rooms across the country have become chronically overcrowded and understaffed. Hospitals often claim they don’t have the funds to hire more employees to meet the urgent needs of patients. Yet in between Super Bowl advertisements for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Bud Light Seltzer Hard Soda, it’s now commonplace to see commercials for institutions such as the University of Rochester Medical Center, NYU Langone Health and Inspira Health.
