I used to think, “I had COVID. I don’t need a vaccine… not for now at least, and maybe not ever.”
November 2020: I was a few hours into my 12-hour shift in the emergency department. I had been treating COVID at every shift for about 10 months at that point, and I knew what I was feeling now was more than just fatigue. I took a swab and went into …
If I already had COVID, do I need the vaccine?
I go to the hospital cafeteria to unwind from this night — another unpredictable one with irrational patients that randomly attempt to assault the staff.
This time, they missed. Behavioral health. Land of the psychotics and schizophrenics. But an incredible staff to work with.
This song blares out. “Easy Like Sunday Morning.” And I know that nothing is “easy” anymore.
I’ve heard it all about COVID vaccinations:
“It’s my body.”
“It’s not FDA-approved.”
“I have natural …
I’ve always had a strong sense of justice. I think that’s what attracted me most to superheroes as a child. Growing up, my favorite by far was Spider-Man.
Many people think it’s because of his superpowers, but for me, it was always about Peter Parker, the man behind the mask. Peter Parker is a nerdy guy who loves science and makes inappropriate jokes all the time. He has this immense personal …
You don’t belong here. You’re not good enough. You’re no superhero.
“The dramatic uptick in mental distress, trauma, and substance use since last year has driven a corresponding rise in the use of virtual mental health therapy and psychiatric care, helping us, as a society, more effectively grapple with the fallout from the pandemic. According to one study, more than …
Behavioral health opportunities during the pandemic [PODCAST]
You were finally starting to understand Bitcoin when talk about alternative cryptocurrencies or “altcoins” started springing up everywhere. Elon Musk is tweeting about Dogecoin. Mark Cuban is talking about Ethereum. The Motley Fool is posting about Chainlink.
What are altcoins, and should you be investing in them?
I cannot speak to whether investing in altcoins is appropriate for you. Altcoins are a highly volatile and risky asset class that offers the potential …
Alternative cryptocurrencies: 5 tips for physicians
I recently unearthed all my pay stubs from residency, including the first one — all $89.14 of it.
When I received that check, I had just moved across the country after a grueling internship in Philadelphia, which left me physically and emotionally exhausted.
I was staying in a motel, which I paid for with a credit card because I used my last paycheck from internship to pay for moving across the country. …
How medical training teaches doctors to be financially unhealthy
I went to replace four hanging plants at a nursery this past weekend because they all died once the Texas heat made its appearance, despite being watered, placed in the shade, and talked to by my daughter and me.
While I was looking for plants that will hopefully survive the Texas summer, I was chatting with my husband, who cheekily said, “Those plants weren’t resilient.”
He, of course, knows my disdain for …
“When I teach medical students who rotate with me at my clinic, I ask them to write about the single most negative and single most positive emotional experiences they have had in their 3 to 4 years of training thus far. Commonly, I see fear as a negative emotion …
Can doctors have personalities? [PODCAST]
“Just as Simone Biles has her detractors, there will always be physicians unable to empathize with their mentally ill colleagues, believing psychological struggles are a constant state of being human. But if taking care of oneself means temporarily leaving the workforce to receive professional treatment, then so be it. Physicians …
If Simone Biles were a doctor she would be vilified, not praised [PODCAST]
We’ve all been told by a well-meaning friend, family member, or therapist, “You can’t care for others unless you care for yourself first.” Put your oxygen mask on first, blah blah. But in medical training, we repeatedly demonstrate that, unfortunately, you can provide great care for patients while neglecting yourself. Medicine rewards self-sacrifice and hard work, often at the cost of physician happiness or wholeness.
Maybe it starts in undergraduate school, …
Medicine rewards self-sacrifice often at the cost of physician happiness
Despite the bright pink walls of its exterior, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility stands inconspicuously, set back along a stretch of a frequently traveled road. We had come to meet Carla (identifying information changed), a detainee seeking asylum whose lawyer had requested a medical evaluation from our medical student-run human rights clinic. The immigration officer peered closely at our letter granting entrance and balked at the medical equipment …
Asylum seekers: a snapshot from an American physician’s lens
“According to AAMC, the median debt for medical students in 2019 was $200,000. Unfortunately, fundraising for scholarships was difficult for many organizations due to the pandemic despite more students seeking out scholarships. Luckily, more anonymous generous donors have helped the next generations of physicians in recent years, but what happens …
Scholarship tips for medical school [PODCAST]
Creative photography
Year after year, new medications find their way into the market, adding to the abundant and colorful world of pharmaceuticals.
Medications play a dual role in our lives, as they represent wellness and illness concomitantly. I am primarily fascinated by the human love-hate relationship with medicine in the form of dependency and liberation, desire and distaste, and hope and despair. On one …
The abundant and colorful world of pharmaceuticals
Award-winning actress Christina Applegate revealed on social media that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). “It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going,” wrote Applegate in a tweet.
Multiple sclerosis is a neurological autoimmune disease that has puzzled patients and health care providers for decades. The disease was first described by the French physician Charcot in the 1800s in the original report “sclerose …
Christina Applegate reveals multiple sclerosis diagnosis
“Our country is facing a voting crisis with multiple layers: chronically low overall voter participation, even lower voter participation among physicians and — to add insult to injury — an increasing number of laws that make voting more difficult, especially for those with chronic health conditions. Voter registration in health …
Doctors: You can increase voting in the U.S. [PODCAST]
I’m confused and disillusioned. When we were in the throes of the COVID pandemic at the beginning of this year, the talk revolved around when life-saving vaccines would become available for the general public. Thankfully, beginning during the first quarter of this year and continuing through present times, the COVID vaccine is being administered to all who wish to secure it. But unfortunately, in many states across our country, some …
The vaccine is not the enemy. COVID is.
“Currently working in a COVID ICU in a tertiary center in Kathmandu, I have experienced how difficult it is for the health system to manage the patient load. A month ago, ICU beds were fully occupied, ventilator alarms would set off time and again, indicating low flow as the hospitals …
Telemedicine in Nepal during COVID-19 [PODCAST]
In 2009, I came across the white paper written by Satoshi Nakamoto describing a digital currency based on a peer-to-peer network, completely independent of central banks, autonomous, decentralized, digital, and would give access to finance and banking to the masses.
This “magical internet money,” as it was described at the time, would come to be known as Bitcoin.
The reason that this paper was so revolutionary was that it was prescient of …
Should physicians invest in cryptocurrency?
U.S. COVID deaths have surpassed U.S. war deaths from World War II, Vietnam, and Korea. The unvaccinated are a fifth column that has ushered in a wave of nasty COVID variant infections in the United States, with their attendant deaths, costs, and disruptions to society. We need to stop debating the tone in which we address the unvaccinated and label their sabotage for what it is. We need to start …
The fifth column brings a fifth wave
I’m currently reading What Happened to You by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, and being reminded that I react rather than respond when I am in a trauma activation. When that happens, I don’t have access to higher cortical functions like critical thinking. And as Gabor Mate, MD, would say, I don’t respond to what’s happening; I respond to my perceptions of what’s happening. And actually, I …
How a physician learned to stop reacting to overnight calls
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