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Fact vs. fiction: the battle between life and death in the world of COVID-19

Alya Khan, MD

Physician

May 15, 2020

We all love a good conspiracy theory. Did a man really walk on the moon? Who really killed JFK? On and on. The medical conspiracy theories have also been around. The anti-vaccine movement has left many children vulnerable to preventable life-threatening diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic has elevated conspiracy theorists to the point that they have planted the seeds of doubt in one too many Americans. Social media has been inundated …

We need to learn to accept death in the United States

James A. Quinn, PA-C

Conditions and Diseases

May 15, 2020

Life may never be the same after COVID-19. With tens of thousands of Americans having succumbed to the coronavirus in the United States, some of us are considering our own mortality. Life insurance companies have plenty of new customers. Estate planning attorneys are busier than ever. Many of us are thinking about how our loved ones will be taken care of in the event of our own death.

Death is always …

Bearing witness: the physician’s role in a time of crisis

Josh Mugele, MD

Physician

May 15, 2020

Like many physicians not initially on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic, I watched with growing dread as stories from doctors and nurses started coming out from hot spots first in China then in Italy and then Seattle and New York. Seeing their faces and hearing their voices, I was struck by their exhaustion and fear but also by their sense of responsibility and duty. I wanted to help, …

A response to unemployment during the COVID pandemic: Medicare for all

Mallika Sabharwal, MD

Health Policy

May 15, 2020

One afternoon in clinic, I opened a patient’s chart for a telehealth visit. Within days of the COVID pandemic, all clinic visits had transitioned to telehealth. The young woman had sent a picture through the electronic medical record of a rash on her leg. Upon calling her, the woman explained that the rash started a month ago, wasn’t painful, and she couldn’t recall anything that caused it. On further investigation …

The unexpected time the COVID-19 pandemic gives physicians

Aakanksha Asija, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 15, 2020

My three-year-old daughter calls it “canolavirus.” To her, it represents the answer to a number of hitherto unprecedented events happening in her life at this time. Her physician mommy working from home for a number of weeks now. The last she remembers mommy being home continuously for such a long stretch of time was never. I went back to work after my maternity leave when my daughter was …

Humility drives physicians in the face of COVID-19

Gloria K. Aggrey, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 15, 2020

One of the great responsibilities in doctoring is alleviating suffering. That hasn’t changed. But the novelty of COVID-19 makes us uncertain as we care for our patients. Anxious even. We feel helpless watching people get ravaged with SARS-CoV-2. We are all limited in our fund of knowledge. We know that we aren’t incompetent, but COVID-19 has made us feel impotent.

A hospitalist friend recently broke down in tears after pronouncing …

We are not past the risk of COVID-19

K. Maravet Baig-Ward, MD, PhD

Conditions and Diseases

May 15, 2020

If you’re like me and you don’t live in a state that has already started re-opening, you are likely taking a lot of walks. Regardless of where you are in the U.S., I think we can all agree that if you cough or sneeze in any public setting, you automatically feel like you may as well have a scarlet “S” hung around your neck. I have found myself looking around …

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We are not past the risk of COVID-19

Loneliness is a silent epidemic crying out to be heard

Andy Lamb, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 15, 2020

She reached for my hand, her hands gnarled, the skin fragile, translucent, road mapped by bluish veins: Hands that had done much in her 87 years. She looked at me from her hospital bed and with voice trembling, her eyes tearing, spoke words that penetrated my heart: “Can I stay here? Everyone is so kind. I am all alone now. I have no family or friends left. I have no …

Self-care is not selfish: It’s imperative to save the practice of medicine

Jessie Mahoney, MD

Physician

May 14, 2020

The necessity of putting on our own oxygen mask first has never been more clear.

Bringing wellness into the mainstream culture of medicine and empowering and healing the healers so they can heal others has been the focus of my leadership work my entire career in medicine.

It took a pandemic to bring widespread national focus to this issue. The cultural shift is finally beginning. For the sustainability of the practice of …

Finding hope in the COVID-19 pandemic

Lavi Nissim, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 14, 2020

I am a 41-year old physician in the Phoenix metropolitan area. In the course of several unforgettable weeks in March 2020, my life, like every American’s, had been drastically flipped on its head. While I feel fortunate to be able to continue to have employment and a source of income, I cannot deny there is a daily palpable sense that my profession puts me at a great risk for exposure …

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Finding hope in the COVID-19 pandemic

Physicians are called to care and service, pandemic or not

Melody T. McCloud, MD

Physician

May 14, 2020

“I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to be in, a position to relieve the suffering of others.”
— Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler

In a time of crisis, epidemic or pandemic, “Who ya gonna call?”: An athlete? A booty-shaking singer? Television or movie stars? Yes, entertainers’ work provide humans fun. They make us laugh, or can foster team pride. But are they heroes? Do they save lives?

Might you call …

When learning medicine is not enough

Hanna Saltzman

Medical Education

May 14, 2020

“Hey, doc,” our new patient grinned at me without teeth. He wears his teeth to eat peanuts, he explained, but today was hankering for a ham sandwich, so left the teeth at home. Here in the clinic straight from the logging job that he had worked for the past fifty years, he wore steel-toed boots, hands covered in dirt. Clarifying that I was a medical student, I asked …

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When learning medicine is not enough

A young doctor struggles against the emotional devastation of losing a patient

Paul Rollins, MD

Physician

May 14, 2020

We worked tirelessly attempting to resuscitate this mother of five for almost an hour. Her husband was called, and he notified us that he would be there shortly. In the end, our heroic measures were simply not enough. It is fearful to imagine being told your wife and mother to your five children is no longer alive on Mother’s Day. The uncertainty of what killed her is a tough pill …

Alfred Hitchcock, COVID-19, and the MacGuffin

Jules Lipoff, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 14, 2020

The last couple of months in a world with COVID-19 have felt absurd, incomprehensible, like something out of a movie. Most of us hunker down in our homes and wear masks whenever we’re out. Those who work in patient care settings try to limit risk, both of becoming infected, or perhaps worse, unknowingly infecting others. How can this really be happening? Everything seems to have changed overnight. The paranoia, fear, …

Family and medicine: a day in the life during the pandemic

Lisa Sieczkowski, MD

Physician

May 14, 2020

Sunlight creeps through the living room blinds. We have taken to sleeping here now on the giant sectional sofa. Most days, there is no reason to set an alarm. The dog stirs, moves from where he was nestled against one child to stretch out alongside another.

My son rolls over, clutching the impulsively purchased Sunday Citizen throw around his bony frame. He is wearing his quarantine uniform – buffalo plaid flannel …

Pandemic Wedding is the haunting image you will never forget

Michael Huang, MD

Physician

May 14, 2020

I am a full-time primary care physician and part-time photographer. When my physician assistant and practice manager asked if she could take last week off to prepare for her daughter’s wedding, naturally, I asked about the plans. Her daughter, a registered nurse, and her fiancée were planning to go ahead with their wedding ceremony in front of only a …

It doesn’t matter whether it’s COVID or cancer: We need to unite all to cure the one

Dane Dickson, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 14, 2020

Like other physicians, the past few months have left me with a multitude of feelings; helplessness, fear, anger, and uncertainty among them.

As an oncologist, I’ll confess, there’s another emotion I’ve been grappling with…frustration. As of mid-May, there will be close to 80,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. During this same time, there have been over 160,000 people who died from cancer.

I’m not trying to diminish COVID at all. COVID …

Empathy in the age of misinformation

Yenting Chen, MD

Physician

May 14, 2020

Recently many of my peers in the health care and science professions have found themselves on a new, unexpected frontline in the war against COVID-19: the battle against widespread medical science misinformation on social media. It is important for us to engage empathetically if we choose to enter into this discussion. This is particularly challenging for those of us who have spent our entire careers adhering to the …

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Empathy in the age of misinformation

How the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for class consciousness among physicians

Juliana E. Morris, MD and Simon Ma

Physician

May 13, 2020

What labor struggles do a grocery worker, custodian, and doctor in the United States have in common? A few months ago, many people’s answers may have been – not much. But ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, our shared challenges are becoming ever more apparent.

The pandemic is revealing that physicians, under our current for-profit medical system, are workers. Doctors are being expected to labor in dangerous settings for …

How coronavirus took my grandfather’s life

Zaki Y. Azam, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 13, 2020

As a first-year internal medicine resident in NYC, the physical and emotional toll this has placed on me is unmeasurable. My attending physician reminds me of someone commanding a battlefield: my “allied” residents, doctors that chose different specialties but are now deployed to my floor, “coalition” doctors, students that graduated early to help us. Medicine has been replaced by …

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