She was naked in her seclusion room — a padded cell — with her gown on the floor and drenched in her urine.
I was her nurse.
I gave her lithium.
She put the pill in her mouth and then spit it at me in my face. Then her tirade began:
“I’m Jesus. The FBI is watching us. The computer chip in my head said to kill, kill, kill you.
They’re watching me. They’re watching …
The genius within a schizophrenic mind
It’s scary. Like 9/11, we have a new reference point touching everyone on the planet: life before COVID-19 and life after. Regardless if you get it or don’t, the unknowns and secondary consequences are scary. Life before COVID was scary, too, minus the urgency.
Before COVID, we sensed the weight of living on a sick planet. We felt powerless to change the tide of forces affecting our lives for the worst. …
Reproductive psychiatry, also known as perinatal psychiatry or maternal mental health, focuses on mental health concerns in pregnancy (also including planning and IVF), delivery, postpartum, and parenting. As a reproductive psychiatrist, I try to imagine myself in the situation of my patient, to conceptualize the stresses she’s dealing with, who can support her at home, and, on top of any needed meds—what sort of therapy, self-care, what strategies she would …
COVID is not what women expected when they were expecting
Every physician I know has a story about an unanticipated patient event. A story that was traumatic at the time and easy to now recall in fine detail. A story that was so impactful that it still haunts them. When a patient suffers an adverse event, many people are affected — the patient, his or her family, and the health care providers. The physicians and their team who are most …
Second victim syndrome in the time of COVID-19
In this world of misinformation, fear, social media overload, and mistrust, seek counsel from your health care provider.
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have witnessed the bravery of my colleagues on the front lines treating patients and putting themselves and their families at risk, heroic nurses swabbing hundreds of patients tirelessly in 100-degree heat in full PPE, the selflessness of volunteers donating time and funds to those in …
We are tired, overwhelmed, very committed, missing our families, and carrying each patient with us as we try to deliver excellent care in a very disorienting time. We worry about the health of our families and friends and community as well as our own health, for we are no help if we become sick and cannot continue to care for our …
After 3 straight weeks in the NICU, a neonatologist’s take on the pandemic
Some images stick in the mind as unreal and incandescent things, despite their lived experience. My mind holds onto the gray-haired woman, stooped from age and wearing the hospital-issue facemask, standing alone with her hands clasped tightly behind her back. She was peering through the window of the door to her husband’s ICU room where he had just died. I joined a small group of nurses to hold a distant …
The unseen debt of the pandemic
Mary is a woman of sixty years. She is obese. Originally from rural Alabama, she told me her aunt and uncle raised her, and they were bootleggers, making their own liquor. By age fifteen, she was drinking this homemade hooch. She never told me how she made her way to New York and New Jersey, where her kids now live, and where she once had a husband. She is unsure …
A social worker’s sickest patient
Living the surreal experience of the COVID-19 pandemic challenges us on multiple levels. As a physician, I feel the responsibility to understand the magnitude of the situation and implement the best measures to protect my patients, trainees, my family, and myself. I experience the fear of getting sick or losing a loved one and the sadness and frustration of seeing millions of lives affected by illness, desperation, isolation, and death.
COVID-19 …
COVID-19 through the eyes of my kids
Our country, and the world, is beyond exhausted by COVID-19 and the utter chaos and destruction of lives it has caused. All people, including physicians, are being pushed beyond capacity. What do we mean, collateral damage? Originally related to war: the unintended result of a terrible, unprecedented event or action. We may not be in a traditional war, but make no mistake, we are in a war.
Imagine – you have …
Mental health care is the not so silent collateral damage of COVID-19
To suggest that the impact of the novel coronavirus has been nothing short of devastating – from a health perspective, to the economy, to basic social interaction – would be the most striking understatement of the decade. Daily media viewing over the course of the last two months has seen virtually nothing but bad news – sickness and death, trillion-dollar relief programs, millions out of work, businesses lost, growing tensions …
We need effective wound care medicines in our national stockpile
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the structure of many people’s households has changed dramatically. Young adults who were away at college had to return home when schools closed, and many will still be at home this fall as schools continue to limit on-campus classes. Some people chose to move in with family after job loss strained their finances. And some families chose to temporarily move older relatives out …
Living with extended family? Try these tips for better mental health.
I am exhausted. I’m a physician in the suburbs of Houston. The latest COVID-19 infection rates in the Houston area show a steep increase in rates since reopening in May. And it’s still rising.
As an infectious diseases physician in the middle of this whole COVID-19 pandemic, and as a mom of 2, here’s why I’m tired:
1. Working almost every day (weekends included) since this March at multiple hospitals and in …
This infectious disease physician is furious and exhausted
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COVID. What is it to me? A sense of growing dread for primary care providers everywhere, whose patient panels read like a list of future dead. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease, emphysema. The reality is most people have no idea how close to devastation our medical system is at most times. How many times was the hospital of my residency on diversion due to staffing or available beds? How many times …
The COVID effect on this physician
As I reflect on Independence Day, I think of soldiers that sacrificed their own lives for others – present and future. They knew what they were facing, and yet, continued to push forward. They imperfectly led our nation through unprecedented waters with wisdom and perseverance. Today, we find ourselves in unprecedented waters – questioning our country, our leaders, our friends, and our doctors. Breaking silence, I am answering the question, …
To my kids from a mentally exhausted doctor
In polarizing politics, it seems that somehow the greater good often misses the very grain that comes together and makes it great — the people.
After we blindfolded ourselves to a warning from China and then Italy, New York witnessed the grinding impact of COVID-19. Merely two months later, many other states are showing unprecedented growth in cases. Surpassing 2.5 million cases, we have officially unflattened the curve. Our failed …
Complacency fuels the slow burn of COVID-19
Growing up in Puerto Rico, “babas” (bottles: biberón/botellas) and “bobos” (pacifiers: chupetes/chupón) were very common among the families and children of the island. I still remember our Abuelita giving us milk in our “babas,” so my younger sister and I were sure to fall asleep better. From the time of our births, to when my sister was three years old, the “bobo” was also consistently being used in our home.
Now, …
Bottles and pacifiers: advice from a Latinx pediatrician
What if I told you that the most important vital sign of the COVID-19 pandemic is likely being incorrectly reported in almost every doctor’s office, urgent care center, and hospital around the country?
The everyday citizen probably believes that this is an exaggeration, but most physicians know that this is unfortunately, accurate. Let’s step back a minute. Years ago, terms like sepsis, septicemia, and bacteremia were frequently used in an interchangeable …
The most important and erroneously reported vital sign in medicine
June 25
Like most physicians, I am bad at scheduling my own doctors visit. This year, despite COVID craziness, I had made an appointment with a new PCP to get Singulair refills (my allergies were a killer, and a drippy nose behind an N95 is no joke). I loved my new PCP! She connected with me on a personal level. She dealt with all my concerns without making me come in …
The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on the health inequities many Americans face because of where they live and the air they breathe. We are seeing what I have long seen in my allergy practice—many of my patients live in communities with unhealthy air.
Patients like James, a 50-year-old African American bus driver who lives in Maryland. He sees me for asthma and pollen allergies, which are …
People with COVID-19 who live in highly polluted areas are more likely to die
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