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Life on the frontlines and surviving the emergency department (with the help of social media)

Conditions and Diseases

March 24, 2020

In the midst of a global pandemic, COVID-19 has forced all involved with patient care to be innovative and adaptive. Deployed as an emergency department (ED) physician, on the frontlines of medicine, my team and I work tirelessly to take care of and research the COVID-19 patient. I have seen COVID-19, and I have seen the fear instilled in the eyes of my patients that receive this diagnosis, akin to …

It’s time for physicians to unite, not tear each other down

Anila Bindal, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 24, 2020

One of the many reasons I’m proud to be American is that we truly identify as being American. We aren’t Illinoisans or Californians. Our pride comes from being part of this nation. Why is it different in our careers?

As I watch the coronavirus multiply, both in number and as fear in people, I also watch it unravel the divide among physicians. Instead of bonding together, physicians are spending time and energy …

Cocktails during COVID-19

Nancy Yen Shipley, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 24, 2020

During this time of social distancing, most of us are struggling to keep our social connections alive. I found that in this flurry of planning how to continue to care for my orthopaedic patients, making sure childcare is lined up, and setting up “decontamination zones” in my home for my critical care doc husband and me when we come home for the hospital – that I really missed connecting with …

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Cocktails during COVID-19

How can we redefine locum tenens?

Sridhar Rajamani, MD, MBA

Physician

March 24, 2020

Physician burnout and shortage have a profound impact on the ability to deliver quality, accessible health care in the United States — especially in rural areas where specialists are scarce. Burnout is costing the U.S. health care system roughly $4.6 billion a year, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Another study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings suggested 54% of physicians have …

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How can we redefine locum tenens?

Physician advocacy in the age of COVID-19

Jessica Kiarashi, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 23, 2020

In “Why doctors should get political,” I focused on the need for doctors to voice their opinions in order to rally patients and inspire them to take control of their own health, but what about the responsibility we have to ourselves, our families, and our colleagues? Who will advocate for us as health care providers and especially for those on the front lines putting themselves at …

5 ways to manage anxiety during the coronavirus pandemic

Christine Tran-Boynes, DO

Conditions and Diseases

March 23, 2020

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 …

Physicians are not “giving up”

Grant Meeker, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 23, 2020

We are scared.

This virus threatens our lives. It threatens our families. It threatens our friends. We have physician friends crying between patients in fear that their partners who work in the emergency department (ED) may contract this virus, known to affect health care workers with greater severity than the average person. We see reports of hospitals and health care offices running out of personal protective equipment (PPE). What follows are …

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Physicians are not “giving up”

A psychiatric services response to the COVID-19 crisis

Nomi C. Levy-Carrick, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 23, 2020

Past experiences should inform, but not determine, future action. This has been much on my mind as we bolstered outpatient psychiatric services in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The effort has felt deeply personal, as well as professionally imperative. Waiting now for my own COVID-19 test results, keeping physical distance from my family, I suddenly lost focus and momentum. For a fortnight, it seemed to take more energy …

Coronavirus is a crisis. And an opportunity.

Harsh Bhavsar, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 23, 2020

I’m bombarded with emails of rapidly changing policies to prevent infections and identify COVID-19 patients (in the course of writing this, I’ve already received three more emails), I’m having a hard time finding masks because the nurses are hoarding them in some corner or taking them home, I feel regret for previously telling friends when they asked me that the coronavirus outbreak is likely not to cause this much death, …

Coronavirus has slowly but surely made its way to Middle America

Lisa Sieczkowski, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 23, 2020

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has slowly but surely made its way to Middle America, stowing away on well-meaning citizens who have traveled to the coasts or overseas for one reason or another. It has sneakily hitchhiked its way into Creighton University basketball games, pub crawls, and several area Walmarts. A few patients have been seriously ill, but the majority of the physical, intellectual, and emotional time, effort, and energy spent in …

We don’t have the luxury of losing health care workers at this critical juncture

Bhavika Bhan, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 23, 2020

What prompted me to write this essay is seeing a chest X-ray of a physician fighting the COVID-19 disease, and it did not look promising. I wish for the speedy recovery of this unknown physician. With the current state of affairs that our country and many others in the world are in, we need to take a pause and think about how we arrived at this place.

Every day the number …

Coronavirus made simple by your friendly neighborhood emergency physician

Gavin H. Inglis, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 23, 2020

I have been answering a bunch of questions about this virus. There is a lot of confusion, and there are a few questions that I seem to hear over and over. So, here is a simple primer.

1. Why is personal distance of 6 feet a thing? The measles virus can be spread through the air because it can literally float on the microscopic dust in the air. …

It’s the R-word again: rationing

Therese Zink, MD, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

March 23, 2020

Here in the U.S., we slip and slide around the reality of rationing. We like to believe we can have it all, do it all, that there are no bounds. And if you have money in the U.S., that is more or less true. Until now.

Personal protective equipment and test kits for COVID-19 are in short supply. I won’t explore the myriad of reasons of why …

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It’s the R-word again: rationing

Hospitals run on much more than doctors and nurses, so spread the love

Craig Bowron, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 23, 2020

As a hospitalist in Minnesota, my colleagues and I are busy preparing for the coming viral storm. It is starting to rain. We read the harrowing front line stories from overwhelmed hospitals in China, Italy, and now here in the U.S., and reach for a sublingual Zofran tablet to calm the nauseous dread.

The smart and intuitive “flatten the curve” graphic has made a strong case to the public for why …

I don’t want to risk my life to keep my job

Anonymous

Conditions and Diseases

March 23, 2020

There’s an intruder in our relationship, and her name is COVID. Every night I come home, and she’s lurking around the corner on an Amazon box, in the crevice of my couch perhaps, or her scent is lingering on my husband’s scrubs. A physician-physician marriage is hard enough, but when put under the microscope of a life-threatening pandemic, well, it is disjointed to say the least.

My husband is an orthopedic …

Don’t underestimate patients’ emotions

Michelle Grua, MD

Physician

March 23, 2020

There’s a saying in medicine that: “If you’re holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” It’s our way of acknowledging that we all suffer from a particular set of blinders unique to our own specialties. Usually, our focused way of viewing the patient facilitates our ability to serve them, to see their problem, and fix it. Occasionally, it prevents us from seeing that there may be a deeper meaning …

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Don’t underestimate patients’ emotions

Medical trainees need knowledge and education on health care systems and policy

Daniel Arteaga, MD, MBA and Isobel Rosenthal, MD, MBA

Medical Education

March 22, 2020

As medical trainees, we will shape the rapidly changing health care environment in this country. We are fiercely advocating for our disadvantaged patients, debating the price of life-saving medications, and carefully considering how the upcoming elections will shape the health care system in which we both provide and receive care. All the while, we handle our responsibilities and prepare to care for critically ill patients during a seemingly inevitable pandemic. …

Doctors will die. My friends will die.

Joanna Bisgrove, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 22, 2020

I looked at the door. Standing there, in a paper gown, my hair tucked back into a ponytail, mask, and shield across my face, gloves on, boot covers over my shoes and legs. Behind that door was a woman I had known for years, whose youngest I had delivered, whose children I still cared for. And her father had just died.

Under normal circumstances, as her long time family physician, I …

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Doctors will die. My friends will die.

Are administrators disciplining doctors who wear masks too often?

Mia Marietta, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 22, 2020

We are in crisis. Hospitals have become, in addition to repositories for the pandemic, infectious with moral illness.

From an emergency medical physician:

I have been told not to wear a mask in every room, only in rooms of people with infectious symptoms. And we are talking about [just] a surgical mask. I have emails saying this, and they go on to say no outside masks from home unless they are simple …

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Are administrators disciplining doctors who wear masks too often?

Infection preventionists are true heroes, and other things we’ve learned so far

Michael Edmond, MD, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

March 22, 2020

We are in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s already very clear that the infection prevention community in the U.S. has never faced such an enormous challenge. Reflecting back on the past two weeks, we have learned many things that will make us better prepared for the long term. My goal is to keep track of these in this blog. So here we go:

We are far too …

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