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Lopez: A renegade M.D. administers aggressive treatment on Skid Row streets.
The team gathered at 4th and Crocker streets and headed south, into the blue-tented netherworld of social collapse, armed with life-saving drug-overdose kits and injectable, long-acting anti-psychotic medication.
“We’re trying very aggressive treatment on the streets,” said Dr. Susan Partovi. “Housing definitely saves your life, but there’s a small sub-group of people who won’t accept housing because of their mental illness.”
She figures that if she administers medication that lasts a month and can help stabilize patients — with their consent — they’ve got a chance.
“They don’t think there’s anything wrong, and they think they don’t need housing,” Partovi said. “They don’t think rationally, and so once you treat their delusions and their irrationality, they start to realize, ‘Oh, I do need resources.’”
Partovi, who began practicing street medicine in 2007 in Santa Monica, has never been shy about her lack of patience with the official response to the entrenched humanitarian crisis. In 2017, I shadowed her as she walked through Skid Row with County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, advocating for broader authority to assist those in obvious acute mental and physical distress, even if they refused help, and despite opposition from civil rights attorneys and others.
By administering long-acting meds, Partovi—author of the just-published “Renegade M.D.: A Doctor’s Stories From the Streets”—is once again pushing boundaries. She’s acting out of a belief that her approach is medically sound, and with frustration sharpened by her street-level view of the countless bureaucratic cracks and canyons in the system. She’s driven, too, by an uncompromising compassion for homeless people who are so sick, she can sometimes predict who will die next.
Critics might say a person in the throes of impairment isn’t competent to give consent for a month-long dose of medication, and that such meds are neither a panacea nor a substitute for intensive ongoing case management. But to Partovi, the slow pace of intervention — along with multiple daily deaths on the streets — add up to a human rights violation and a moral failure, so she’s stepping into the breach.
But she’s not a psychiatrist, and her street medicine team’s approach is not fully embraced by the L.A. County Department of Mental Health. DMH has psychiatric street medicine teams operating in several parts of the county. The Skid Row unit —which is led by Dr. Shayan Rab and includes psychiatric nurses, social workers, and addiction counselors, and sometimes conducts sidewalk court hearings for those who resist treatment — was featured in a September 2022 article by my colleague Doug Smith.
He told me he has used both short-term and long-term anti-psychotics, depending on the situation. The risks posed by medication are not as great, he said, as the risk of being homeless, sick, and untreated.
“The need is so dire, and the patients are dying at such a young age, and the lack of available psychiatry is so marked,” said King, who leads a street medicine team through Westside streets four days a week and often works with a psychiatric nurse practitioner. “We’re not doing this in any sort of cavalier fashion. We’re doing it very thoughtfully with a mind to knowing our medications and knowing our diagnosis and treatment are based on a ton of experience and a lot of exposure to working side-by-side with psychiatrists in the field.”
In 2020, I wrote about a formerly homeless Santa Monica woman whose life had been turned around after King treated her for her addiction and physical and mental ailments. The treatment included a long-acting injection the woman agreed to, and when I met her, she was living in a hotel before moving into housing arranged by the outreach team.
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When I met with Partovi last month on Skid Row, her team consisted of Dr. Steven Hochman, an addiction specialist; David Dadiomov, director of USC’s psychiatry pharmacy program; and social worker Sylvia Meza. It was Meza who established this nonprofit outreach team — it’s called SUDIS, for Substance Use Disorder Integrated Services — and brought in Partovi as medical director last year.
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Is now the right time to invest in gold as prices have cooled?
The price of gold has climbed to record highs recently and has remained strong through much of April. And, that growth continued until the precious metal traded at around $2,390 per ounce on April 19, 2024. But since, growth in the price of the precious metal has cooled, with gold’s price now hovering around $2,300 per ounce.
This lull in gold’s price may represent an investment opportunity.
In general, investing is centered around buying assets when prices are low and selling them when prices are high – generating a profit on the difference between the two. So, considering the declines in gold’s price over the past few days, now may be the time to make your investment. But is buying gold during this lull in prices really a good idea?
Compare your gold investment options among leading brokers now.
Gold prices have cooled. Should you buy in now?
With gold’s price down from recent highs, you may be wondering if now is the right time to buy in. There are several reasons the dip in gold’s price may represent an opportunity to buy. Here are some of the biggest:
Prices may rise again
If looking at a gold price chart shows anything for certain, it shows that changes in the overall growth of the medal come in fits and spurts. Periods of price growth are typically followed by periods of declines and vice versa.
But with inflation rising in recent months – and with gold’s reputation as a safe-haven asset that can hedge against inflation – it only makes sense that the price of the precious metal will eventually start to head up again in the future. While attempting to time that directional change may be tricky, buying the precious metal while the price is down gives you the opportunity to take advantage of any upward movement that may be ahead.
Add gold to your portfolio now before prices have a chance to rise.
You may be able to make a quick profit
Gold isn’t known as an asset in which you can earn a quick return, but in today’s market, that may be the case. Don’t forget that in January, gold was trading at just $2,000 per ounce. And, by mid-April, the commodity’s price had climbed to around $2,400 per ounce. That’s about 20% growth in a matter of months, much of which happened since March 1 – an impressive climb for any investment asset.
Perhaps more importantly, gold’s price growth through the beginning of 2024 shows that the commodity doesn’t have to be a buy and hold style investment that you keep in a safety deposit box or precious metal depository for years to come. There’s also the possibility that the commodity’s price could climb further ahead, making it a compelling way to potentially generate a quick profit.
There are other benefits of investing in gold
There are other benefits of investing in gold that have little to do with the price growth seen thus far in 2024 – or the lull in prices seen over the past couple of days. Those benefits include:
- Inflation protection: Gold has long been considered an inflation hedge, and for good reason. When inflation drives the prices of consumer goods and services up – and the value of the dollar down – gold’s price tends to rise. So, it could be used to maintain the value of your portfolio during inflationary economic conditions. That’s important in today’s economic environment as stubborn inflation continues to weigh on the value of the dollar.
- Portfolio diversification: Gold’s price doesn’t always move in the same pattern that bonds or stocks do. So, mixing a reasonable amount of gold into your portfolio (up to 10% of your portfolio assets) as a diversifier could protect you from losses should one or more of your traditional portfolio assets fall in value. “If you have less than 5% – 10% of your net worth in commodities & FX (forex), you should absolutely consider adding exposure to gold and other precious metals,” says Vijay Marolia, money manager and managing partner at the wealth management firm, Regal Point Capital.
The bottom line
Gold’s price has fallen from recent highs – which may represent an opportunity to tap into growth ahead. However, gold isn’t simply a “buy while it’s low and sell while it’s a high” kind of investment opportunity. The commodity can also protect your portfolio from the stubborn inflation we’ve seen thus far in 2024 while acting as a diversification tool that could increase your risk-adjusted portfolio returns. So, consider adding gold to your portfolio today while it has the potential to grow in value.