Upon walking through the revolving door that guards the hospital’s main entrance, I was ushered by security staff to join the queues of my peers, also seeking passage to their respective posts.
“The new policy,” the officer explained, examining my hospital ID to confirm that I am, indeed, an employee. Visitors are no longer allowed.
“Please sanitize your hands,” another instructed me, as he pointed to the neat rows of surgical masks …
Doctors are begging the public for basic protective equipment. Us. The United States of America. Supposedly the most advanced, most privileged nation in the world.
We are in a pandemic dumpster fire. There has been no centralized movement to tackle this escalating threat. Every hospital, city, county, and state has been left to flounder on its own. I’m not the only one who’s noticed we’re completely floundering, right? Doctors …
Since the coronavirus outbreak, reports of anxiety have increased, especially among physicians. Physicians face numerous stressors, including fears of contracting the coronavirus, concerns about potentially infecting loved ones, PPE shortages, testing delays, and frequently making quick decisions with limited information.
Common symptoms of anxiety are increased worrying about one’s self and/or loved ones, difficulty sleeping, difficulty eating, poor concentration, increased heart rate, hyperventilation, and struggling to control worrying.
Here are five ways …
As we have literally overnight plunged into the world of telemedicine, I wanted to caution everyone to stop and think about something.
As an avid telemedicine provider, I truly believe in helping support our patients and the public. However, if anyone is an employed physician or medical provider, please keep reading.
If your practice did include telemedicine before, this may be a non-issue. But if it didn’t, you need to ask these …
I am a middle-aged gastroenterologist almost 15 years out of training. I have a chronic medical disease and had a bout with lymphoma two years ago, both of which require me to stay indefinitely on immunosuppressive drugs.
I am certainly not the only health care worker who is scared. Most winters that I will contract the flu or another illness from patients who want their screening colonoscopies performed while sick, from …
I wish that I didn’t have the experience of working 34 years as a nurse. I know the big picture in a hospital. A recent article stated that the Twin Cities, where I live, has 500 ICU beds, 450 ventilators. As of last Friday, those were 95 percent full.
Apparently, there are new CDC guidelines stating that healthcare workers can wear surgical masks when N95 masks are not available, but the …
An excerpt from Of Plagues and Vampires: Believable Myths and Unbelievable Facts from Medical Practice.
The concept of a vampire predates Bram Stoker’s tales of Count Dracula – probably by several centuries. But did vampires ever really exist?
In 1819, 80 years before the publication of Dracula, John …
Please print or share these graphics that can help educate the public on the do’s and don’ts of COVID-19 coronavirus. Courtesy of family physician Kevin Nguyen.
(Please click to enlarge.)
Collectively across our country, as society shuts down, physicians, along with our brave co-workers in the hospital, will be going to work to combat the largest pandemic we have seen in our lifetimes. While such a crisis frightens us all, it has also served as a soul-renewing time for medicine. Over the next several months, our tribe worldwide will be risking their health and lives to serve and treat patients …
Strange times right now, huh?
The spread of COVID-19 is expected to be massive because the virus is sneaky
I live in Maryland, and our schools are shut down statewide due to coronavirus (COVID-19).
That means that since I’m a pediatrician, I’ve been peppered with questions from patients, family, and friends wondering what they’re going to do with the kids for at least two weeks (and, realistically, probably four or more).
They’re all asking …
14 years ago, I recited the Hippocratic Oath, and two sections have always stuck with me:
“Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick” and “I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment.”
The events over the last couple of weeks have affected me deeply. Of course, I’m concerned about a novel virus that is infecting and killing people. But, I’m more …
I’ll admit that a month ago, I thought COVID-19 was going to be another overblown SARS or MERS or even H1N1. I talked about it with my friends in the medical field, and we had a bit of a “been there, done that” attitude. But I was wrong, and in the time since, I’ve educated myself as much as possible. This strain of coronavirus is more contagious than the flu, …
All hands on deck! No one sits this one out. We are all MD/DOs. We all took the same oath, and in unison. Year after year, we graduate as our parents and grandparents shed tears of joy. In those years of sleep-depriving, relationship-straining, self-confidence-trying medical school and residency: We dissected everything. The human body, the human heart (the non-anatomical one), and even what it means to follow that damn oath. …
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“Everything we do before a pandemic will seem alarmist. Everything we do after will seem inadequate.”
– Michael Leavitt
Why are we writing this?
The COVID-19 pandemic has reached a point where containment is no longer possible. The COVID-19 threat is real, and rapidly getting worse. Many of you are very nervous; some are unsure of the validity of the information you are reading. As physician leaders, we felt it was important to …
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 26-year-old man is evaluated during a follow-up visit after presenting to an urgent care clinic for back pain 1 week ago. Laboratory studies at that time were significant for a serum creatinine level of 1.4 mg/dL (123.8 µmol/L); other laboratory studies, including urinalysis, were normal. A …
A New Jersey physician assistant who was the state’s first COVID-19 patient is speaking out from his hospital bed, calling his illness “severe” and raising concerns about his treatment.
James Cai, a 32-year-old non-smoker with no other health conditions, has been at Hackensack University Medical Center for about a week and says his illness has worsened significantly over that time.
“In the …
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Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is an acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy in which the body’s immune system attacks peripheral nerves. Clinical and epidemiological evidence seems to indicate that most cases are preceded by an infection such as Campylobacter jejuni enteritis, but in many cases, no cause is identified.
GBS is characterized by symmetrical muscle weakness that begins in the legs and ascends. The degree of weakness can vary from mild difficulty with ambulation …
While it’s well known that China and Iran have under-reported their COVID-19 statistics, Italy has been fully transparent. What we are learning is very concerning. The Lombardy province alone has experienced a surge in deaths due to the coronavirus— from 20 to 66 deaths in just one day. Analyzing data for the country as …
COVID-19 is here, and it isn’t going away. The SARS-CoV2 virus, and the disease it causes, has entered the ecosystem of human pathogens and is running up numbers that make it appear to be heading into the realm of the pandemic.
Let’s look at how health care workers and patients alike can mitigate the damage …
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As a new nurse, I was constantly overwhelmed. I had spent four years of my life learning how to become a nurse, and then here I was, being “a nurse” and wondering all the time whether I was even any good at it. My heart was in it. But every moment of every shift, I felt anxious about my understanding of the information presented to me. I remember conversations with …
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