I am a cardiology fellow at a large hospital. I plan to keep anonymity even though I don’t think there would be repercussions from my story, but in this day and age, you never know. I was on call recently and was paged by our ED about a teenager with chest pain. OK, teenager with chest pain, big whoop. They later described that this pain was positional in that it …
Please remember that patients with COVID-19 are human beings
If one of your patients told you he is going to go spend a few hours hanging out in the cold this week with a bunch of people who might have coronavirus, what would your advice be? That is exactly the situation thousands of people in Wisconsin faced on April 7, as the state decided to push forward with their election despite an attempted delay by their governor in the …
Wisconsin and Anthony Fauci prove physicians need to and can be national leaders
I hope that this letter finds you (and myself) alive and well after all this COVID-19 craziness ends. I never really got the chance to explain everything when I was taking care of you. It wasn’t your fault you ended up at the hospital when you did, and you deserved so much better.
First of all, I was a pathology resident. A redeployed pathology resident. Actually, redeployed …
I’m sorry: a letter from a pathology resident on the frontlines
As a medical student now in the time of COVID-19, many friends and family have turned to me seeking advice and guidance in an uncertain time. I’ve appreciated how my different experiences in medical school have prepared me for this responsibility. My immunology and pathophysiology classes can explain how COVID-19 spreads, how it attacks the respiratory system, and how the symptoms manifest itself. But I quickly came to realize that …
COVID-19 is a story of human beings
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts and officials largely cautioned Americans against wearing face masks in public. Surgeon General Jerome Adams had tweeted, “Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!” to encourage basic hygiene measures and social distancing instead. The CDC dissuaded healthy people from wearing masks as well, recommending they don facial coverings only when exhibiting symptoms. Even President Obama tweeted, “Save the masks for health care workers.” …
The enormous potential of a universal mask policy in America’s response to COVID-19
A few weeks ago, I wondered aloud whether people grieve the same in the middle of a pandemic. A pandemic or other tragedies like earthquakes or tsunamis, when there are hundreds or thousands of people grieving for their lost family members and friends, is their individual grief felt less acutely? Does it help to know that there are other families grieving like yours? Or does the individual grief get pushed …
How do we grieve in a pandemic?
Correna is full of simplistic Henny Youngman-type one-liners (many of you readers, I understand, may never have heard of the comic, Henny Youngman, but no matter). But her one-liners are not particularly funny.
She might say as we drive along, “I am SOB,” (Stuck or broke) or “CRS,” (can’t remember shit), or “SOS,” Stuck on Stupid, and her favorite one, which has no initials is “The world is full of idiots, …
Be a little patient with people, and the rewards can be significant
I am sitting at my kitchen table. To my right is my daughter, 9; to my left, my son, 11. They are drawing, reading, doing work that their teachers have diligently sent electronically. Between quiet stretches and fighting between my kids, I try to keep up with the nonstop, detailed emails coming from my institution, Michigan Medicine, information designed to keep staff up to date, and ready to work.
I …
How COVID-19 affects this family physician at work and at home
I hate to say this, but you were right.
We hadn’t come across something such as yourself, at least in our lifetime. Young, old, retired, or working—you were an entirely new beast to us. You had the world turned on its head in a matter of months and began to swoop into our lives in the deadliest way.
You are so small, yet your ability for discreetness and complete invisibility had us …
A physician’s letter to coronavirus
Brown paper bags line the windowsill of the COVID-19 intensive care unit at Eskenazi Hospital in downtown Indianapolis. The bags are filled with the N95 masks we’re reusing, labeled with the handwritten names of my staff: Patrick, Angela, Brittany. They are mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters.
As of this writing, we are caring for more than double our average number of ICU patients and using more than triple our average number …
We don’t talk in terms of supply numbers. We talk in terms of days.
I want to write a letter of thanks for all the sacrifices you have made for our nation during this COVID-19 pandemic.
Thank you for all the lives you have saved.
Thank you for fighting to save all the lives that were lost.
Thank you for leaving your homes each day, not knowing if or when you will hold your children or see your spouse …
A thank you to emergency physicians
My first possible COVID-19 case came nearly three weeks ago, before there were any cases in our city. He was a healthcare professional who presented with fever, sore throat, and cough. We did the usual strep and influenza testing, both negative, but I thought that he looked different. He had some diarrhea, stomach pain, and a different look to his face that I couldn’t place.
“You might have it,” I said. …
How the lack of coronavirus testing impacts primary care
I’ve been telecommuting for two weeks, and I already feel like Bill Murray’s character in the film Groundhog Day. A college friend of mine had a term for this feeling—déjà movie. I ease into my day with the repetitive normalcy of feeding the dog and sitting with my coffee while I watch the news.
A lead story included pictures taken by Dr. Colleen Smith, a young doctor at Elmhurst Hospital in …
The crisis after COVID-19: Why doctors won’t get treatment
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I’m a third-year medical student, but my medical education, as I knew it, is currently on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Stanford has pulled its students from hospitals and clinics for the time being, following recommendations from the Association for American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
Our pre-clinical students, first and second-years, have transitioned to remote learning. Fourth-years, who have mostly completed their required rotations and have already Read more…
Even with education on hold, medical students still contribute
I am the director of critical care for a hospital. Five days ago I tested positive for COVID-19. I can’t know for certain where exactly I contracted the virus. But when my hospital admitted its first COVID-positive patient, I stayed until 3 a.m. to set up the isolation ward and care for the patient until she was intubated and transferred to the ICU. I entered the isolation room wearing …
We’re buying masks and gowns with clinicians’ health. We need to stop.
The worst of our peers now represent us to the public. Today, whether they are the subject of legal action after their abuse of women is revealed, or dragged into the spotlight through the courage of the patients they assaulted, male gynecologists are becoming notorious in American medicine.
While the history of our profession is rife with examples of male gynecologists building their clinical knowledge on the suffering of women, by …
Male gynecologists: a call to action
I am a professor and cardiac anesthesiologist who practices at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. Like the majority of health centers across the world, our leaders are working around the clock to treat COVID-19 in our community. We on the front lines are preparing, educating ourselves daily on rapidly changing plans and treatments, and working to keep …
The inspiring women physicians of the COVID-19 pandemic
Out of the blue, a new virus popped up, and ten weeks later, it is a pandemic. Within the last ten weeks, doctors have identified this new disease, figured out how it is transmitted, identified what body fluid we need to test to determine who has contracted the disease, developed a test for it, mass-produced that test, and distributed the tests all over the world. What an incredible response we …
This pandemic highlights the need for an emergency fund
I have been writing columns for physicians for twenty years. And year after year, I have had physicians say this: “I’m glad you said what you did. If I said it, I’d be fired.” There are variations on the theme, but they’re much the same. Twenty years, and far more than 20 years, during which the alleged health care leaders in America have been routinely muzzled because they aren’t supposed …
Truth dies in silence. Sadly, so do people.
With COVID-19 raging through the nation, and limited supply of PPE at hospitals, doctors and other critical care personnel are at high risk due to their increased and daily exposure to the virus. For health care workers, the need to plan for a possible worst-case outcome for themselves and their families has become an immediate concern. Doctors are spending limited weekend time Read more…
How doctors can rush to complete their wills
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