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In the aftermath of COVID-19, plaintiff attorneys will have a field day

Physician

May 13, 2020

Before COVID-19, the health care system was plagued by another epidemic: malpractice lawsuits. Much is expected of doctors, and disappointments have consequences. Lawsuits are too often a consequence. Under normal conditions, there are 46,000 malpractice claims per year. One-hundred percent begin with the allegation of medical negligence. Seventy-three percent end deciding there is none. In these 33,800 cases are no indemnity payments, but there are $767 million in defense costs.

Now comes COVID-19. Tons of disappointed patients …

What John Snow and cholera tell us about the COVID pandemic

Brian Elliott, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 13, 2020

It’s hard to imagine that someone could die from diarrhea. If you live in America today, you’ve likely never heard of anyone with cholera, and certainly never of anyone dying from diarrhea. Yet, in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was fairly commonplace. Medicine just wasn’t advanced at the time. Amputating limbs of fully-conscious human beings was only recently falling out of favor with the discovery of ether as …

To improve care, health systems must adopt diversity and inclusion

Jay Bhatt, DO, MBA

Physician

May 13, 2020

The current economic crisis caused by COVID-19 has led the nation’s unemployment rate to rise to 14.7%, a figure that likely understates the damage. Even more troubling are the unemployment numbers for women and minorities: 16.2% for the former, 16.7% for blacks, and 18.9% for Latinx (compared to 14.2% for white workers).

There are plenty of reasons to pursue the goals of diversity and inclusion in hospitals and health systems. But …

Connecting through PPE: patient communication during COVID-19

Kham Kidia, MD and Amrapali Maitra, MD

Physician

May 13, 2020

Communication is the cornerstone of patient care. Patients trust healthcare workers with whom they connect. In the current era of COVID-19, connecting with patients and their families is both critical and yet more difficult than ever before. We draw from our experiences as internal medicine residents to outline the current landscape and provide tips on how to communicate more clearly.

COVID-19 brings unique challenges to the art of communication, such as …

Are physicians martyrs or models?

Tracey O'Connell, MD

Physician

May 13, 2020

This concept comes up in Glennon Doyle’s new #1 best-selling book, Untamed. In this memoir, she looks at her unhappy marriage through the eyes of her daughter. She has been staying in the marriage for her children, believing that getting a divorce would be bad for her kids. As she is combing her daughter’s hair, she has an epiphany: I am staying in this marriage for my little girl. But …

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Are physicians martyrs or models?

Celebrate health care workers by not suing them

Eric Dessner, MD

Physician

May 13, 2020

In New York City, each evening at 7 p.m., the sound of people banging on pots and pans can be heard from apartment buildings within earshot of hospitals all over the city. The cacophonous clanging is a salute to the beleaguered health care workers changing shifts on the asphalt below. The ritual conveys appreciation and thousands of idiosyncratic messages of hope.

And that’s great. The gesture does, no doubt, positively impact …

Take a moment to pause and step outside of yourself

Sujatha Sankaran, MD

Physician

May 13, 2020

When I was a child, I used to sometimes close my eyes and try to convince myself that I was someplace else. I would lie on the carpet of our living room, block out the sights and sounds and smells around me, and imagine that I was lying on the floor of my grandmother’s flat in India as I had the previous summer, or in the soft sand of the …

Medical care is being rationed, but not in the way you think

Ethan Sobol, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 12, 2020

As the pandemic loomed, there was widespread concern about running out of crucial medical resources, such as mechanical ventilators. We watched as the crisis escalated in Italy and elsewhere, where hospitals seemed overwhelmed.

We prepared for the surge. Hospitals, industry, and government clamored to secure both ventilators and other valuable resources such as personal protective equipment and medications. Health care professionals were recruited to New York City and other hard-hit areas. …

Dissent in the time of COVID-19

Jaclyn Lewis Albin, MD

Physician

May 12, 2020

I’m a dissenter from way back.

Perhaps it’s my red hair and nearly 6-foot frame that made me always feel different. I never quite fit the mold as a good Southern girl. I’m too loud, too assertive, too much a leader.

I struggled with some of the belief systems around me, so I majored in religion and theology to frame my own conclusions in a foundation of education. I wrestled with my …

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Dissent in the time of COVID-19

Enduring the pandemic: How to support your friend on the frontlines

Jesse O'Shea, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 12, 2020

Troubled by the volume of patients dying before they could even be taken out of ambulances, a New York emergency physician recently ended her own life.

Are we all just vital statistics, waiting to be calculated? COVID-19 has infected and killed more than 56,000 Americans. We must remember that every single one of these deaths is a loved one—a son or daughter, a father or mother, a husband or wife, a …

My professional life battling an RNA virus

Lawrence Hurwitz, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 12, 2020

I feel like I am reliving a bad dream. The race to find a treatment and/or cure to SARS-CoV-2 is reminiscent of decades of practicing gastroenterology while hepatitis C roamed the hospital wards as a death sentence for many. I found myself recently recalling a patient whose story ends with science finding a cure.

As I peered around the ICU curtain, I could see a motionless ill man. I …

An oath I cannot keep

Anonymous

Medical Education

May 12, 2020

This week I will be taking the physician’s oath.

I am a person who only makes promises I can keep. Thus, I am struggling with committing myself to certain parts of the oath.

Reflecting over the last four years of medical school, I can say with certainty that I hated my medical school experience. I left my family/friends and the diverse, immigrant-cultured society that I’ve known my whole life for the homogeneous, …

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An oath I cannot keep

An orthopedic surgeon goes to the COVID frontlines

Nicole M. Montero Lopez, MD

Physician

May 12, 2020

I am an orthopedic surgeon in New Jersey and recently started a new practice. Less than a week after starting, news of COVID-19 arriving in NYC was everywhere. My family, my hospital system, and the rest of the country was trying to get a handle on this virus when my daughter spiked a fever that weekend. I spent an hour calling DOH at 5 a.m. trying to figure out if …

A vaccine alone will not be enough to recover from the impact of COVID-19: Emotional antibodies against it are needed as well

Jay Wong

Conditions and Diseases

May 12, 2020

I was seven years old when I first got my heart broken. I was swiftly rebuffed by my second-grade crush, Brett who, upon getting gently pecked on the cheek by me one afternoon following recess, grimaced and began aggressively wiping off the invisible remnants of the kiss with the palms of both his hands, swiping vigorously up and down his cheek while shouting in utter disgust, “ew!” in front of …

Comparing the preparedness of hurricanes to pandemics

Sarah C. Smith, DO

Conditions and Diseases

May 11, 2020

As I stand in line at a Tampa Lowe’s today in the middle of a global pandemic, I cannot help but note the vast differences in people’s behavior around me. There is a complete dichotomy in the ways in which individuals are responding to COVID-19. Some customers who err on the side of safety are sitting in their cars waiting for curbside pickup. Others are carefully social distancing as they …

Emergency psychiatry during COVID-19

Ruchi Vikas, DO

Conditions and Diseases

May 11, 2020

The reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic in the comprehensive psychiatric emergency program (CPEP) began insidiously, with an initial sense of unease. Patients are brought into CPEP when they pose a danger to themselves or others. Often they are brought by police, but occasionally they come on their own or with concerned family members. CPEP is a locked unit, separated via locked double doors that require a valid ID badge to …

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Emergency psychiatry during COVID-19

Kudos to the new breed of physicians

John Bishop, MD

Physician

May 11, 2020

I became interested in medicine in my second year of college at Baylor University. I lived in the old Brooks Hall, which was built with large suites and communal bathrooms, and formerly used as military housing. Six of my suite-mates were pre-med and had doctors for either fathers or mothers. They all spoke of the work their respective parents did, and how much enjoyment treating patients brought them, and that …

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Kudos to the new breed of physicians

What do you want from health care after COVID?

Rosalind Kaplan, MD

Physician

May 11, 2020

In the last six weeks or so, the practice of medicine has been turned topsy-turvy by the COVID pandemic. Those weeks seem like an eternity. We have been so consumed with testing and treatment coronavirus, flattening the curve, and figuring out how to wear a mask without having our glasses fog up, that it’s hard to remember health care before COVID.

But let’s try, just for a minute. Let’s try to …

A psychiatrist crashes into telemedicine during the pandemic

Allie Thomas-Fannin, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 11, 2020

As far as psychiatrists go, I admit I’m odd, even in a field known for its quirks. I’m fast-talking, irreverent, and most patients tell me I’m not what they expected, but they come back.

I’m not for everyone, and that’s OK. I love my field but didn’t always feel the field loved me.

At a conference workshop, as a PGY-III, in a room of 40 other psychiatrists, mostly attendings, the leader pulled …

Everyone agrees nurses are heroes. Why aren’t we treating them that way?

Inge Garrison, RN

Conditions and Diseases

May 11, 2020

It’s been said that history doesn’t repeat, but it does often rhyme. And as we’re learning during COVID-19, lessons from the past can be a guide to help us navigate a modern pandemic — if we listen to the rhythm of history.

For a little more than two years in the middle of the 19th century, Great Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia fought the Russian Empire for …

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