My niece and I look across the expanse of the second floor of Marshall’s Dranko Library as we take in the library’s Spring art exhibit: Creation in Confinement. We spot my moon drawings on black paper hanging on the opposite wall. As a new artist, accompanied by my niece artist, I excitedly read: Heavenly Moon and Worldy Skies, and how they are both done with pastels, colored pencils, and gel …
Can we agree to abandon the notion that COVID in children is “mild?” At least, as a medical community? We are taught to look at the data and guide our patients based on evidence. And the fact is, in a single week in January 2022, nearly 1 million pediatric cases were reported according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Since the detection of the omicron variant, COVID-19 …
COVID is not always mild in kids
Next time you are stuck in the waiting room of your doctor’s office, read this.
A few years ago, a video published by Cleveland Clinic made its way around the internet. It’s a tear-jerker. It’s called Empathy and can be found on YouTube. If you’ve never watched it, you should. It takes you on a walk-through of various parts of a hospital – the front entrance, hallways, elevator, …
Thoughts from a doctor who runs late
My patient was trying to kill himself by refusing to treat a bladder infection. I looked down at him. His aura was black, indicating the premeditated murder of a human. Guess they hadn’t caught him for that one. His gang tats were Latin American, and his eyes were black. He didn’t like me much.
I wasn’t phased. He couldn’t do much about it, paralyzed from the neck down.
“It’s not going to …
A gang member shot by cops and paralyzed just wanted a radio
I come calling from the frontlines of COVID.
My colleagues and I are exhausted. Defeated. And on the brink of collapse.
I have been a health care worker for 15 years. I have never seen things so bad in so many ways.
At the height of COVID, I was working 12-hour overnight shifts and weekend day shifts, in addition to my full-time job of helping manage a life support system called extracorporeal membrane …
Support desperate health care workers now, before your life counts on them
In a previous article, I described the brain-damaging effects of allowing work-life balance to fall into disequilibrium. For example, scientists from the Karolinska Institute, in Sweden, reported that burnout may weaken the connectivity between far-flung regions of the brain and may even result in brain atrophy.
A burnout crisis in medicine has been simmering for more than a decade. In 2015, researchers from the Mayo Clinic reported on …
A neurosurgeon’s proposal to reduce burnout in medicine and beyond
As I look back at my career, two professors stand out. They affirmed me when I did something well (in words I wrote in my journal, would go back to and read when I was discouraged). They recognized my weaknesses but did not concentrate on them, although they did not ignore them either. Both made me think I had the stuff to be a cardiologist. I flourished; I …
“This is terrible.” When harsh criticism is sometimes needed.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Rochelle Walensky is in the eye of a storm after a controversial new guideline from CDC regarding the isolation of COVID-19 patients. The recent CDC directive suggested that everyone stay home for five days after a positive test regardless of vaccination status. If there are no symptoms or the symptoms are resolving after five days, you can leave …
The CDC’s continuing failures: Is there a way out?
Each time I am in the emergency department (ED) as a medical student, I meet new members of the health care team that make superior patient care possible. I have quickly developed a greater appreciation for the fact that no medical professional works in an isolated bubble. The strengths that each other bring to the table are paramount to the flow of patient progress. Before my time as a medical …
The work of an emergency department nurse through the eyes of a medical student
“In the end, the patient-physician relationship is crucial to overall decision-making for any plan of care, treatment, or surgery. There are many variations in the reviewed studies in health care literature as to the cost-effectiveness of second opinions in medicine. These studies could be easily misconstrued that there are …
Why and how to get a second opinion [PODCAST]
Throughout my recovery journey from anorexia with a propensity for compulsive exercise, I have often heard, in a tone full of self-judgment, “I have the opposite problem.”
What the person is typically referring to is that they feel they eat too much, exercise too little, or both. The self-judgment usually reflects the way society places a positive value on undereating and over-exercising and negative connotation on the opposite. The interactions demonstrate …
I turned to leave.
She spoke softly, “Thank you. Thank you for coming.”
The way these words were spoken caused me to gulp a deep breath while my heart fluttered.
In my mind, I was doing my job. A physician visiting one of our COVID-positive patients in the hospital.
In my mind, I wasn’t even able to offer her human connection as I would have wished to do.
Sound: Gowned up in PPE, including two …
The power of a patient’s thank you
“My body, my rights.”
“My body is a temple.”
“I don’t want poison going into my body.”
” I’ve done my research.”
And they refuse to wear masks; they refuse to social distance. They refuse COVID vaccinations and the booster. Essentially, they spit in the face of the population that trusts in science and medical research.
The disrespect and disregard for scientists, medical doctors, RNs and respiratory therapists are astonishing.
Their support groups tout ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine …
What really happens when the unvaccinated get sick with COVID
An excerpt from The Bonds We Share: Images of Humanity, 40 Years Around the Globe.
The Bonds We Share is a photo essay that features Dr. Losack’s photography in his travels 43 years around the globe. Dr. Losack goes on to state that racism, xenophobia, divisiveness, and discrimination continue to divide us as human beings. Tack on a global pandemic, it …
A physician’s photo essay from his travels around the globe
When the Delta variant hit Mississippi, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) published alarming statistics for maternal and perinatal deaths. Pregnant women were dying at three times the pre-COVID baseline rate. These young, healthy women would rapidly deteriorate in a matter of days, with three weeks as the average time to death. And those were just the moms. Fetuses under 20 weeks gestation aren’t counted in the mortality rate …
What does it even mean to work through the unimaginable?
Shame.
It’s what keeps physicians silent. It’s what keeps physicians from getting the help they need.
I’ve been a successful doctor for many years, but I’ve lived with the shame of having an eating disorder. It was my secret that hardly anyone in my life knew about.
No more. My shame is gone, and I’m ready to tell you my story.
When I was in eating disorder recovery, my …
If we are honest with ourselves, many of us are often bored with our lives. It’s not our fault. We followed the blueprint that society laid out for us. We worked hard to get to this stage of our personal and professional lives. Most of us have achieved more than we could have dreamed of when we were younger. We are in the elite profession of medicine. We have the …
Using positive psychology to cultivate attention to things that matter
An excerpt from The Vaccine: Inside the Race to Conquer the COVID-19 Pandemic. Copyright © 2022 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
For the first time in weeks, Uğur Şahin’s calendar was clear. It was a Friday morning and the two-bedroom apartment he shared with his wife, Özlem Türeci, and their teenage daughter was unusually …
Inside the race to conquer the COVID-19 pandemic
“As individual patients, we often don’t think about these costs. In my Instagram poll, nearly everyone taking Descovy reported receiving the drug effectively for free, largely due to Gilead’s copay coupons. However, as with anything in life, nothing really ever is free. More patients taking Descovy rather than generic …
Is Descovy really the better option? [PODCAST]
For the most highly educated and specialized professional on the health care totem pole, physicians put up with a ridiculous amount of nonsense in the workplace.
You are pressured to see high volumes of patients in a rapid-fire fashion (15 minutes per visit) even when it interferes with the quality of care.
You are expected to complete mundane and excessive administrative tasks and generally are not directly compensated for this time.
You are …
Why do physicians stay in toxic work environments?
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