Dr. Lorna Breen, an ER physician in New York City, killed herself after working the front lines in the pandemic. Her death has created a call to action. The headlines read that healthcare workers are suffering; they are heroes; they need support. Dr. Lorna Breen was 49 years old. I am 49 years old. I am also a successful ER physician on the front lines of the pandemic. I can’t …
I have been thinking a lot about Dr. Lorna Breen
A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
It is the ultimate irony that health care professionals on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic are among the highest risk, not only for exposure to the deadly virus, but economically. Whether they are inundated with COVID-19 patients or still awaiting …
As I sit here and stare at my computer screen for the 11th hour today, my attention has drifted from my hypothetical study material to reality.
Over the past two months, I’ve spent hours on WebEx lectures as opposed to learning from patients, hours on video lessons instead of casual chats with residents and attendings on the wards, hours on virtual cases instead of seeing, diagnosing, and treating patients myself, hours …
Will the pandemic derail medical students’ career paths?
A number of people have asked my take on Plandemic and a viral interview of a couple of docs in Bakersfield who challenge conventional wisdom on COVID. Part of me feels like I shouldn’t amplify the chatter. But maybe I can type something slightly antiviral. As usual, I land in a boring, neutral, barely worth a “like” position.
For starters, I’ll admit to being a fairly agnostic conspiracy curious skeptic for …
Please avoid getting sucked into polarized binary thought
I believe physician wellness is essential to an effective doctor-patient relationship and an optimal healing environment. Thus, I approached my intern year with a sense of curiosity about what wellness would look like during a time that is well-known to be a particularly rigorous portion of residency. Having heard sentiments of “doom and gloom” from physicians who had walked the path before me, I was ready to experience the reality …
COVID-19 as a threat to wellness
When the director of my general surgery program asked for a report on how the pandemic was affecting the residents, I queried my colleagues, promising anonymity to encourage candor. I received a wide variety of responses and reactions. Some are thriving; others are not.
Overall, everyone understands that this is a historic crisis that we will recount at the end of our careers. All are grateful to face the challenge at …
How are the residents doing during the pandemic?
As a physician on the frontlines, l have watched in dismay as many U.S. states have begun to reopen from the lockdown. This is despite the fact that most of them do not fulfill the recommendations set forth by the White House. Those guidelines ask for a “downward trajectory” in newly diagnosed cases or in the percentage of positive tests. Some have criticized …
Upset with the government’s pandemic response? Let’s elect more scientists and doctors.
An excerpt from The View From The Wrong Side Of The Day: A Story About Nursing, PTSD And Other Shenanigans.
I’m not exactly sure when things first started to get bad for me. Thinking back, it was all rather like the analogy of the frog in the …
An emergency room nurse diagnosed with PTSD
Within the current COVID-19 pandemic, health care workers and educators have quickly needed to make adaptations and sacrifices. In order to make room for the conservation of necessary aspects of care, we need to take a conscientious look at our resources. As such, two missions have been embraced nationally by health care systems and university hospitals: conserve personal protective equipment (PPE), and reduce viral exposures to staff and students. Medical …
Medical education in the COVID-19 pandemic can’t be ignored
If you are a physician unhappy with your current EHR system (surveys suggest 2 out of 3 are), and you do have the ability to switch, this article is for you. Our COVID-19 pandemic may place you in a bad financial time for this, but it’s also placed you in an excellent time to plan for it.
In 2010, with my then-current EHR software vendor declaring bankruptcy, my private practice, like …
3 steps to changing your EHR system
I am an internal medicine doctor on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic in Oakland, California. Before the first confirmed case at my hospital, I could sense the fear and anxiety of the impending disaster with every interaction I had with colleagues and my patients. This was largely due to the uncertainty of what was to come, and we were mainly looking towards the overwhelmed health …
COVID-19 isn’t the great equalizer
As an emergency medicine doctor who trained in the Bronx, I decided that I must return to NYC in solidarity. This is the first time I have taken an assignment with my colleagues’ collective burnout as the focus of my intention. Previously I have placed the needs of my patient population first. As this COVID-19 pandemic continues to burn throughout the human species, I marvel at how crisis breaks down …
How ironic it is to be applauded for keeping our oaths
It was the morning of the last trauma shift during my surgery rotation. It was a seemingly normal early Sunday morning. However, when I arrived in the trauma charting room, there was no one to be found. After placing my coffee and protein bar down next to a computer, another medical student walked in, and he looked just as puzzled as I was at the sight of an empty room.
“Where …
How do you tell one of your best friends that his dad may have an incurable brain tumor?
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There are so many. As health care providers and as a nation, we have been acutely aware of the impact of COVID-19 on communities of color and, more specifically, on the African American community.
In April, nearly three-fourths of patients who died from COVID-19 in Chicago were African American. But what I have seen more and more at my hospital is a shift toward a different (but also often marginalized) demographic: …
The impact of COVID on the Hispanic community
The devastation inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic both in terms of health and the world economy will continue to be discussed for quite some time. Large numbers of our neighbors have been impacted in these ways. What has also been just as profound is how this pandemic has changed relationships. Corona has greatly impacted our ability to interact in ways that we can all relate to: social isolation, …
How the pandemic can bring the family-centered model back to pediatrics
“My partner doesn’t want me to come back home now that I’ve come to the hospital. He is worried I’ll come back and infect him and his parents. I have nowhere to go”. Fear and guilt were palpable in the young woman sitting before me. She had decided to follow the recommendation of the psychiatric crisis response team and come to the Emergency Room for worsening thoughts of suicide.
This dilemma …
How COVID-19 is hurting the most vulnerable mentally ill: observations from the frontline
“But, surely offer you therapy or mental health services?” I asked an internal medicine resident and friend on the frontlines in New York City.
“No, not really. Well, there’s one person for our whole group,” they responded.
“And do people feel comfortable going to that person?” I prodded.
“Honestly, even if we had time, it could be seen as weak. Like, you don’t want to be that person that needed it. And we …
The mental health benefits of sharing stories
One of the essential ethical foundations of medicine is that there is one standard that we apply to everyone. Everyone, regardless of their “VIP” status. Recently, Vice-President Pence visited the Mayo Clinic, and in violation of their stated policy, he did not wear a protective mask as he visited with patients and administrators. The White House subsequently disclosed that Mr. Pence’s press secretary, Read more…
Mike Pence and the Mayo Clinic’s moral failure
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
That is a common question you hear in the setting of medical education. I think I heard it for the first time on my first clinical rotation. A little background, I was a non-traditional medical student. I worked as a clinical pharmacist for ten years prior to starting medical school. When the resident asked me that question, I was initially a …
The medical education question that needs to be changed
In April 2020, Dr. Lorna Breen, an emergency medicine physician from New York-Presbyterian Medical Center, came to the University of Virginia Medical Center, not as a physician, but as a patient. She had been working at the height of the COVID-19 epidemic in Manhattan, and was staying with her family in Charlottesville when she committed suicide. Her father described her as a hero killed by COVID-19, another casualty in the …
Physicians and the psychological trauma of COVID-19
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