An excerpt from Medical Myths: A Sceptic’s Journey.
It may be a long while since you’ve heard of a very small infant being found dead in the crib.
As a young doctor, I recall the encounters on cold February nights with devastated …
Over the past year, we have experienced massive organizational change at an unprecedented pace. Traditionally, we could spend weeks planning how to best make a change in our workplaces, but COVID-19 was anything but traditional. Our emergency department at Saint Barnabas Health System in Bronx, NY, needed to pivot on a daily and even hourly basis, and to do so took planning and effort. In general, change is difficult, and …
Assessment without definition: a flat tire on the road of progress
Even though we have known about prions for decades, very little progress has been made in defining what a prion is vs. what a prion is not, how they get into the brain, and how prion diseases are different from other neurodegenerative diseases. Phenomenologically these definitions can vary widely. To some, a prion causes a deadly, …
In the mid-1990s, a few pharmaceutical companies made broad claims regarding the safety and efficacy of opioid medications for pain management. These claims were based on limited research that did not fully account for these drugs’ potentially harmful effects. As a result, we are now facing an opioid epidemic across the United States.
Now, New Jersey joined several other states by legalizing marijuana for recreational use. While there are clear differences …
Serious soul searching can give anybody a headache, but when a young woman asked me that, I was taken aback in my neurosurgery clinic. Huh? I said. Do you know René Descartes? The pineal gland is the “seat of the soul.” Well, my pineal gland has a cyst and is more like the “seat of my misery.” It turns out this eloquent young woman in her early 20s was a …
COVID-19 has shed light on a pre-existing condition in medicine – our health care system has failed to tend to its workforce’s well-being. While generally privileged, physicians are an underserved population about their own mental health care.
Numerous articles and countless interviews have focused on the pandemic’s deleterious impact on physicians’ mental health and well-being. But this is not a new problem, nor is it caused by a lack of resilience. …
Consider the following sports icons: tennis legend Billie Jean King, basketball veteran Larry Bird, triathlete Karsten Madsen, baseball pitcher Kenley Jansen, and cyclist champion Haimar Zubeldia.
What do all of these well-known professional athlete heroes have in common? They are athletes with atrial fibrillation, also called AFib. AFib is the most common heart rhythm disorder worldwide, accounting for 750,000 hospitalizations per year in the US alone. It is estimated that 6 …
I received my COVID vaccine on December 21st before starting an ER shift; sitting in the cold, plastic chair in a hallway-turned-vaccine-clinic, I tipped my head back to blink tears into submission as I reflected on making it this far in the pandemic without contracting COVID. Four days later, after three twelve-hour shifts, I tested positive for COVID.
The COVID vaccine did not cause my positive result; getting exposed …
With COVID-19 vaccines being administered to our front-line health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel of this pandemic. Yet, given the time-limited nature of the vaccine’s development, we have yet to learn the extent to which vaccinated people can spread the virus. The COVID-19 vaccinations prevent disease, but we know little about if …
“Doctor, how are you doing?”
I’m really so grateful when people take the time to ask this. But when I respond, candidly, that it’s been tough and I’m definitely not doing great, I often hear, “But you haven’t had any patients who have died from COVID, have you? And you got the vaccine, didn’t you?” Fortunately, no (not yet) and yes.
My heart goes out to our ICU, inpatient, and ER teams …
She was rather calm during her visit. It was the first time we’d met, and she was establishing primary care with our office and me. We were both delighted to learn she was from a small Georgia town not too far from where I previously practiced, and we quickly reminisced about the slow pace, lack of certain resources, and genuinely good, devout people that often stem from and still reside …
Experts have taken to social media to quell misinformation and address common concerns about Pfizer’s messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine, performing an important public service in support of robust vaccine uptake. However, some scientific information is being oversimplified to the point that it is misleading. The public’s decision to take a vaccine whose long-term risks are unclear should be a well-informed one. Clear communication is crucial to the process of …
Introduction
Today, I had my second shot of the Pfizer vaccine and suffered an unexpected and unreported side effect. That’s the problem with a new medical treatment; you never know what might happen.
Transformation
Just a few seconds after the needle penetrated my arm, I felt a mild soreness, kind of like a flu shot. But as I sat for the required 15 minutes of observation time, a wave of something engulfed my …
ADVERTISEMENT
I write this now as both a time capsule and a vision of hope at the bitter end of 2020. At this point, a COVID-19 vaccine (the vision of hope) has been developed by several companies but has not yet received widespread distribution. Realistically, I know we are in for more quarantines, social distancing, and mask-wearing for at least another 9 to 12 months (sorry!).
My clinical work in psychiatry has …
When the pandemic hit the U.S. – we were caught off guard. We were uncertain about how COVID-19 spread or how it killed. But amidst the chaos, health care providers have learned how to better care for infected patients today. Since March, we’ve learned that surprisingly simple actions can make a significant difference in both containing COVID-19 and improving patient outcomes.
For example, we now know mask-wearing, social distancing, and limiting …
On March 2nd, 2020, as New York State announced its first proven case of COVID-19, a federal court there handed down a stunning decision. For 10 years, according to the court, the United States government illegally failed to hold drug companies accountable when they did not report, or inaccurately reported, crucial data about their drugs’ safety and efficacy.
Between 2007 and 2017, the court held, the Food …
7:42 a.m.: I got my first COVID vaccine today. I don’t feel a thing and almost wonder if I really got the injection. Then, within the first few minutes after receiving it, I feel a little lightheaded. But I realize I haven’t eaten yet for the morning. Luckily, the employee health staff had given me a water bottle, which I quickly down (after sanitizing my hands) and waiting my 15 …
Some of you may have heard it on the playground. Others might have used it in jest. I’m not going to write it. I’m just going to call it the R-word because it’s that disgusting.
It’s a slur against people with intellectual disabilities that you will see peppered in many news stories.
NFL player Janoris Jenkins was cut from the New York Giants for using the word; Khloé Kardashian promised to “do …
An excerpt from Medical Myths: A Sceptic’s Journey.
Most people have heard the joke about rabbits and vitamin A: “Are carrots good for your eyesight?”
Well, I never saw a rabbit wearing glasses!
Vitamin A, one of the essential groups of vitamins, is …
Recently, I started suspecting that RT-PCR testing was not foolproof at ruling out COVID disease after seeing a fair number of patients with typical signs and symptoms but a negative PCR. I have encountered some patients hospitalized with typical COVID pattern pneumonia, thromboembolism with multiple negative PCR tests. Some of these folks even had exposure history and the signature hallmarks unique to this virus, like multiple peripheral opacities on CT …
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
