I rarely post more than pictures on Facebook. In fact, I rarely use Facebook for much of anything anymore. But I need you all to just listen for a second.
I’m scared. For you and for me.
I need you all to take a minute and think of the last time that you interacted in-person with someone who does not live in your home. Did you …
We are making sacrifices for you. Please make a sacrifice for us.
As the mother of a child born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, besides going through four open-heart surgeries and coding, my son has also had eight abdominal surgeries, including a Ladd’s procedure and resection of his colon. William also functions without his appendix, spleen, and gall bladder. In addition to every kind of therapy imaginable, he has had to endure pamidronate infusions, daily shots, G-tube feedings, and TPN. Who knows …
Thank you pediatric medical professionals, as we fondly bid you adieu
Doctors are often called “heroes” – a surprisingly uncomfortable label. Physicians are already tired of being held to a higher standard than the average person; raising the pedestal is problematic. While doctors are compassionate individuals who care about bettering lives and curing illnesses, we are also human. At the end of a standard workday, we would like to live normal lives. Unfortunately, the hours are longer, and we are never …
The pedestal that’s killing doctors
You may already be aware of what a tummy tuck is and who should get one. One thing, perhaps, you’re confused about is what kind of tummy tuck would work best for you. If that is correct, worry not. We’ve got you covered.
There are several different types of tummy tucks, each designed to address particular areas of the ‘tummy’ in a specific manner. Considering each of us has a different …
What type of tummy tuck is right for you?
Back pain is one of the most common reasons people see their physician and one of the most common causes of missed days at work. Approximately 60% to 80% of adults experience low back pain during their lives, and for 10% of them, the pain lasts for more than three months. And although nearly 500,000 Americans have surgery for back pain each year, in most cases, …
5 questions to ask before you have back surgery
When I was a high school student, my calculus teacher stood eager to use her new electronic board. She admitted to doing derivatives for fun on the weekends. I admired the way she looked at a complex math problem and solved it with ease. Even more notable was her ability to motivate uninterested high school students to understand and excel in calculus. We were often more interested in homecoming outfits, …
In honor of Benjamin Franklin: Choose prevention
Millions worldwide have had COVID-19. The largest obstacle to reining in this virus’s spread is that the range of symptoms is unpredictable, from minimal to severe respiratory compromise with diffuse lung damage and death.
As COVID-19 initially marched across China and Italy, scientists honed in on factors, such as old age, hypertension, diabetes, and coronary artery disease, which placed specific populations at higher risk. Unfortunately, one risk factor has proven to …
A tale of two epidemics: COVID and obesity
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost everyone, whether directly, through the loss of loved ones, or its impact on job security. Business has slowed down in many sectors and has been put into a standstill. It became clear that things we thought were imperative to our lives and functionality as human beings were “non-essential,” and we have somehow managed to survive without them for this long.
There have been …
Positive growth from the COVID-19 pandemic
I have worked part-time as an applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapist for the last few years. The job isn’t complicated, and where I am, one doesn’t need a specifically tailored education or license to practice under supervision. An ABA’s clients are diagnosed with autism, and the therapist works to reduce the client’s maladaptive behaviors and increase their comfort with everyday routines, social interactions, and independent living, all while taking data …
Thought disorder, clinical silos, prediction and prevention vs. diagnosing what’s in front of you
As I’ve written before, I have to confess I’ve never been a huge fan of pathways and protocols. They often struck me as rigid and insensitive to the nuances of differences between patients. There are also times when they are just absurd when physicians, especially mid-level providers, implement them when analysis of the clinical situation clearly shows them to be inappropriate.
I suppose part of me …
Do protocols and pathways improve care?
On March 16 — the same day that the nation’s first shelter-in-place orders were announced in the San Francisco Bay Area — a Seattle woman rolled up her sleeve to take the first experimental dose of a possible COVID-19 vaccine.
“We all feel so helpless,” she told reporters. “This is an amazing opportunity for me to do this.”
Also making history that day was Lisa A. Jackson, MD, MPH, physician-researcher with a …
Bridging the gap between the bedside and the bench in the fight against COVID-19
The motto of the House of Stark from Game of Thrones is “winter is coming.” The meaning is a warning to remain vigilant as there are troubling times ahead. This motto applies to both mental illness and the COVID pandemic. There was a brief time where we saw improvements in case numbers and deaths. People began to see small snippets of normalcy again. It gave everyone false hope that normalcy …
The COVID winter is coming. The time to prepare is now.
I started my medical training in the late 1990s. This was after the AIDS epidemic; that is to say, by that time, the human immunodeficiency virus was known, and there were already proven treatments. So, for doctors of a certain age, this is the first time we have battled an emerging disease. This has created a torrent of confusion and therapeutic missteps. The gold standard double-blinded, randomized, well planned, placebo-controlled …
It is overwhelming hopelessness that crushes caregivers’ collective souls
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For thousands of years, bonesetters and doctors could not accurately diagnosis broken bones or differentiate such injuries from joint dislocations and torn ligaments. That changed with a chance discovery almost exactly 125 years ago. Subsequently, perhaps with equal parts of chagrin and enlightenment, doctors began using the new discovery to discount their previous assumptions and accurately diagnose skeletal diseases.
In his darkened laboratory on November 8, 1895, …
Orthopedic surgery enters the modern age on a chance observation
It’s well known that New York City was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring, having been the epicenter of U.S. cases for several weeks.
As I write this, more than 245,000 of my fellow New Yorkers have been stricken, and an estimated one in ten of them have died. In fact, the COVID-19 mortality rate here reached such heights it was projected one New Yorker was dying every …
The need for on-demand access to medical technologies when treating COVID-19 patients
J.T. is a general internist who completed residency in Atlanta early in the AIDS era. His daughter, R.T., is a third-year internal medicine-pediatrics resident in Los Angeles, and his daughter, D.T., is a second-year OB/GYN resident in Philadelphia. They describe and compare their experiences as residents during a pandemic.
Contexts of the pandemic eras
J.T.: I started residency two years after the first cases of AIDS were reported. We residents had not …
Residency during the AIDS vs. COVID-19 eras
“Aunty blew her brains out a few weeks ago!”
Words I shall never forget.
For weeks, she had been in my thoughts. But I never called her. I didn’t because of all the myriad reasons we often give ourselves for not checking up on each other.
In my case, they sounded like this; “I am 7 months pregnant, and it has been a difficult pregnancy.” “I am in an abusive marriage.” “My pediatric …
Female physician suicides: a silent pandemic
We sit silently on this precipice—my family, my friends, my colleagues. Time spins. Momentum is building. It is a tidal wave slowly moving towards us. We are fixed in its path of raging destruction. It is our enemy, not each other. Each tick on the clock, an ICU bed filling across the West—an exponential net positive, admissions to discharges—true or celestial. Yet, still the world turns, blissful unawareness in our …
A physician at the precipice of the pandemic’s next wave
Unprecedented. How many times have we heard that word? Yet, here we balance between the life we knew and the life we long for with the deep, frightening chasm of the unknown strikingly in between. 2020 has not only been one for the history books; it has upended lives. The world economy crawls along, jobless numbers reach all-time highs, and families are finding themselves in a position where making ends …
Advice from a psychiatrist during these unprecedented times
November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, a time when many people in my profession shine a spotlight on the dangers of taking lung health for granted. This year, few need the reminder.
COVID-19 is deadly, contagious, and upending life as we know it. It is also a lung disease. As a thoracic surgeon, I tell people that, if you’re worried about COVID-19, what you’re really worried about is lung health. And …
This Lung Cancer Awareness Month is like no other
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