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How the coronavirus pandemic can save lives in the future

Conditions and Diseases

April 9, 2020

Infectious diseases have been a scourge of mankind since time immemorial. I am a keen reader of history, and anyone who does so, knows that infections have not only caused billions of deaths and untold suffering—but have also brought down kings, armies, empires, and entire civilizations. Previous pandemics have literally changed the course of human history. The one we now face in 2020s America thankfully falls at a time of …

The guilt of a retired nurse

Susan Shannon, RN

Conditions and Diseases

April 9, 2020

I am 64 years old. I was a nurse for 34 years, retiring a year, and three months ago, I worked on the medical-surgical floor, ICU, and the last 30 years, in the emergency room. I retired because I’d had enough.

This year has changed me. My life no longer revolves around my ER job. I am not exhausted from 12-hour shifts, taking at least a day to recover. I no …

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The guilt of a retired nurse

Why good doctors must say no

Rada Jones, MD

Physician

April 9, 2020

Saying no is hard. Even harder if you happen to be kind. You want to help, to make people smile, you want them to like you. Saying no doesn’t come easy.

We’ve never been taught to say no. Ever since we were toddlers, we’ve been conditioned to say yes. Rolling on the floor in a temper tantrum to express our no was a no-no. People don’t like you if you say …

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Why good doctors must say no

COVID-19’s dual threat to seniors: Lapses in care and social isolation is as devastating as the virus itself

Jason Bae, MD, MBA

Conditions and Diseases

April 9, 2020

The novel coronavirus continues to rage through America, with the total cases standing at more than 210,000 and the death toll at over 5,000. It is without question that our seniors–those 65 years of age or older–will bear the brunt of the health consequences of COVID-19 and the projected American death toll of up to 240,000 this year.

It is now well known that seniors have a …

Should the telemedicine boom persist after the COVID-19 pandemic?

Steven Reidbord, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 9, 2020

It was 2013. High-tech entrepreneurs were excitedly “disrupting” industries, bringing goods and services closer to users. Uber replaced cabs, Kickstarter replaced investors, and telehealth companies offered convenient, at-home medical care over smartphone video. Why waste time going to an office or clinic, especially if you’re not feeling well? Why spend so much money? The physician’s physical examination had been oversold. It wasn’t really needed.

Psychotherapy never required a physical exam in …

When a mnemonic becomes dangerous

Jay Wong

Conditions and Diseases

April 9, 2020

Fat.

One tiny word. One voluptuous, full-figured concept.

Several weeks ago, amidst a conversation regarding the risk factors for cholelithiasis (i.e., gallstones) during a chief concern small group session for preclinical students, my preceptor ushered in an aurally convenient yet unsettling mnemonic utilizing alliteration that has apparently been in the works among medical education for a while now, known as “the 4 Fs”: female, fertile, forty, and … fat.

Yes, you read that …

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When a mnemonic becomes dangerous

Why we must be cautious about hydroxychloroquine

Paul Marantz, MD, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

April 8, 2020

We have all listened repeatedly to the many confused, confusing, and misleading statements coming from the White House in the midst of this pandemic, unprecedented in its scope and existential threat. Responding to all the misstatements would be a full-time job. However, the barrage of reckless comments made about drug treatments for COVID-19 during a briefing on April 5, 2020, requires immediate and strong correction.

To address this, I will respond—in …

COVID-19: How do we protect our children?

Faiza A. Khan, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 8, 2020

As I get ready for work, my children, aged 3, 8 and 14, run to me and give me hugs so tight that I catch my breath. It also makes me realize that I have now developed a soft tummy that will need hours in the gym to flatten out. Flatten the curve, so to speak.

These are not normal times. While some of us have had the opportunity of spending …

COVID-19 made me realize that I’m not ready to die to be a doctor

Anonymous

Conditions and Diseases

April 8, 2020

My last block of medical school was supposed to be the best part of the past four years. I carefully crafted a four-week vacation from school, designed for searching for the perfect place to live during my emergency medicine residency while spending valuable time connecting with classmates I might never see again. I could never imagine my current reality of moving back into my childhood bedroom and hiding from imminent …

Doctors and health care workers must be granted student loan forgiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic

Alani Gregory, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 8, 2020

While millions of Americans are being told to stay home, doctors, nurses, and other health care providers are showing up to work every day to battle an invisible enemy—the deadly COVID-19 virus. With hospitals, doctors’ offices, and nursing homes facing personal protective equipment shortages, for health care providers, it is a daily choice between their own health and that of their patients. In fact, many …

Can I belong to the medical profession without having to give up everything else?

Simone Phillips

Conditions and Diseases

April 8, 2020

I had spent the morning in the operating room, holding open the mouth of a young man while the resident physician attempted to stabilize the fractures in his jaw bone and lace wires between his upper and lower gums, much the way one would thread a shoelace between the sides of a sneaker. Peering into the patient’s mouth, I couldn’t help but wonder if he could be an asymptomatic carrier …

Support your local private practice physician. They’re a small business.

Stuart Akerman, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 8, 2020

Small businesses are a vital part of our economy. They are ubiquitous and take on numerous forms, including traditional brick and mortar spaces, kiosks, and online enterprises. They enhance our most basic capitalist principles, such as innovation, entrepreneurship, and competition. Many small business owners give of their hearts and souls, viewing their employees and customers as family. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and with it the necessary sweeping measures of …

How parenting in a pandemic is an unexpected opportunity

Jessie Mahoney, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 8, 2020

Being a parent in the middle of a pandemic is not easy. Sheltering in place with canceled daycare, school, and college, while also being a doctor or other healthcare worker, working in high-risk, high-intensity situations, presents many challenges. It also presents many opportunities.

It is possible to choose thoughts about being a physician and a parent during the COVID-19 situation that can help it feel more like an opportunity and less …

Stop romanticizing the Italian health care during the COVID-19 pandemic

Roberta Zanzonico, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 8, 2020

I have been reading about “the Italian health care system, one of the best in the world,” yet unable to keep pace with the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. Let me be honest and unpopular: the Italian health care system is rotten, and the coronavirus pandemic is showing it to the world.

I am an Italian physician based in Los Angeles. I was 25-year-old when, nauseated by a health care system dominated by …

Now is the time to eliminate tuition in the health sciences

Thomas Schroeder

Medical Education

April 8, 2020

My call to medicine came while sleeping on an old couch in a hospital room in Eastern Turkey, while my close friend lay waiting for a diagnosis. We were scared, but one physician put us at ease, giving us a plan, and being there to help whenever he could. It was that service of medicine, that desire to have a career that allowed me to be with a person at …

A love letter to doctors, from the sidelines of the COVID-19 pandemic

Jill Wener, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 8, 2020

After ten years as a hospitalist, I stopped practicing clinical medicine to focus my energy on helping doctors and other health care professionals reconnect with their professional (and personal) lives in a more meaningful way. I primarily do that through meditation, a stress-reduction technique called tapping (also called EFT), and coaching.

Since the pandemic ramped up in March, I’ve been donating my services to work with docs on COVID-related stress, and …

All I ever wanted to do was to be a surgeon. But I was pushed out.

Anonymous

Physician

April 8, 2020

When people used to ask me what a typical day entailed for me, I would gladly share the early starts, the long days on my feet in the OR, and on-calls where anything would happen. I would laugh at how I must have a bladder of steel and cry over some of the saddest stories which came through the front door. No matter the stories, though, one thing was a …

Physician deaths in the era of COVID-19: human sacrifice, not heroism

Anonymous

Conditions and Diseases

April 7, 2020

A COVID-19 positive resident physician in Detroit died recently, and reportedly two more who treated patients with the virus in New York City have died this week as well; although I can’t say for certain, because their names have not been released and their stories exist only in hushed whispers of the resident community.

And there’s nothing heroic about it. There’s nothing heroic about the preventable deaths of good and generous …

A letter to medical interns, in the midst of a pandemic

Sumner Abraham, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 7, 2020

In residency programs across the country, there is ongoing disappointment and a profound sense of disruption. Match Day was canceled for soon-to-be interns. Medical school and residency graduations will be strange. Finding a place to live and moving in a time of quarantine will be difficult. The only thing certain about the transition to or from residency is uncertainty. “How do I make sense of this?” is a question that …

Social connection in a world of physical distancing

Avneet Soin, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 7, 2020

It has been fascinating to see how our language has become saturated with new vocabulary in the past few weeks, as cases of COVID-19 have exponentially increased worldwide. Terms usually reserved for public health curriculums – flatten the curve, self-isolation, self-quarantine, pandemic – are now part of our daily conversations, and are even available as GIFs on Instagram stories. The language we use on a daily basis ultimately shapes the …

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