KevinMD.com

Raw thoughts from a critical care physician

Anonymous

Conditions and Diseases

March 21, 2020

Physician burnout. Physician suicide awareness. Buzzwords. Words that get tossed around. People in leadership seem to be concerned about. Institutions say they care. “Solutions” get created.

Solutions that look great on paper. Sometimes under the guise of the employee assistance program. The brochure says we care about your mental and emotional health. We get that life is hard. So we’re here to help. We’ll set you up …

God bless us all and help us to destroy you, COVID-19

Rafael S. Garcia-Cortes, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 21, 2020

I, like many of my physician colleagues, nurses, and healthcare workers, have spent my entire adult life sacrificing everything to help others, trying to serve the sickest of the sick. However, for every patient I have saved, you have seemingly multiplied by thousands your vast net of suffering. It takes me just seconds to visualize my weakest, immunosuppressed, heart transplant patients, who have already given everything to survive, to realize …

Advice to employed physicians plunging into telemedicine

Vasanth Kainkaryam, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 21, 2020

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 …

This doctor was called a bitch at work. Here’s what she did next.

Anonymous

Physician

March 21, 2020

As I hug my younger daughter’s little head at school drop-off, the calming aroma of her hair fills me with peace. She scurries across the schoolyard toward her 2nd-grade classroom, her big backpack bouncing up and down, seemingly with its own agenda and dwarfing her tiny frame. As soon as I leave the school, my focus switches.

I’m at the edge of my patient’s hospital bed, reviewing the day’s treatment goals. …

Is centralized quarantine in our near future?

Anonymous

Conditions and Diseases

March 21, 2020

I want to make this simple so that politicians can understand. Our country will never survive this pandemic without centralized quarantine and widespread testing. This is not the flu, and our current policies and lack thereof will result in millions dead and economic disaster.

What is centralized quarantine? Every person who is tested positive must go to a government-designated housing location and not leave until they are no longer infectious. They …

COVID-19 has us on our knees

Jenna T. Nakagawa, MD, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

March 21, 2020

We are in a bizarre state of limbo within the crisis. We feel hopelessly behind, yet still attempt courageous efforts to be preemptive. My residency program, for example, had a fantasy of identifying which services were essential and which were not, staffing physicians appropriately, and staggering work hours to minimize exposure and allow others to be available for back-up when some inevitably fall victim to either quarantine or the virus …

Read more…

COVID-19 has us on our knees

How death is a blessing and a burden

Fatema Shipchandler

Medical Education

March 21, 2020

Our goal in medical school is to learn how to preserve the quality of life. Yet, in order to better understand human life, we are immediately faced with death by means of anatomy lab.

From week one, we are tasked with removing the skin and fat from a cadaver’s thorax — desensitizing ourselves to death enough so we may cope with dissecting someone’s beloved mother or adored husband. It’s difficult not …

Read more…

How death is a blessing and a burden

Why this immunocompromised doctor wants you to stay home

Anonymous

Conditions and Diseases

March 21, 2020

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 …

Be the physician who supports other doctors

Clarissa Barnes, MD

Physician

March 20, 2020

Medicine is a difficult calling. You already know the sacrifices. As an undergraduate, you gave up time with friends and family so you could be accepted into medical school — where you worked even harder.

You understand that the practice of medicine requires you to take responsibility for the care of others … and the emotional toll that comes with it.

In this profession, it’s easy to feel like you’re alone. Our …

7 dangerous myths about the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Robert Pearl, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 20, 2020

The coronavirus (COVID-19) is the single-most important topic on the minds of Americans, and it remains the subject of regular updates from health officials. And yet, despite the abundance of scientific facts and guidance surrounding the disease, misinformation abounds as confusion persists.

Avoiding many of the worst consequences and doomsday predictions will depend, in part, …

COVID-19 policy amendments put nursing home residents at risk

Harsh Moolani

Conditions and Diseases

March 20, 2020

Early data from China and Italy shows that the outbreak disproportionately kills older adults. The rapid spread of these infections in the United States has triggered informal and formal efforts to protect frail and vulnerable populations like those in nursing homes.

Informal recommendations like social distancing have greatly changed the day-to-day lives of most Americans but have played a lesser role for those living in long-term care. …

Practice social distancing so we can #flattenthecurve

Karen Yeter, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 20, 2020

Right now, we are all afraid. We’re all afraid of something called COVID-19.

Grocery store shelves are empty. People are fighting over toilet paper rolls. It’s beginning to look a little like Armageddon.

You’ve seen the photos, heard the stories, watched the news coverage. COVID-19 is real. It’s real, and the incredible infectivity of it is scary.

I’m in medicine. COVID-19 is one of the reasons I went into medicine. Not because of …

A physician leaves concierge medicine after 13 years

Annie Moore, MD, MBA

Physician

March 20, 2020

Much is written about the advantages for primary care physicians and patients of working within a retainer model, direct primary care, concierge-type care model. Little is written about the downside or disadvantages. It is time to shine a light on the benefits and challenges of concierge and standard models through an experienced lens, particularly as drivers of burnout and the primary care shortage loom so large. The phase of a …

A letter to politicians: Doctors without PPE is deplorable and must be fixed

Romita Almonte, MD, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

March 20, 2020

I am a pediatrician. Daily I see kids with fevers and coughs who test negative for influenza. Some have pneumonia. I am not able to test them for SARS-CoV2, so I encourage them to self-quarantine. If I find nothing else, I tell them they have a viral illness. They ask me if it’s “the coronavirus,” and I tell them that, contrary to what they are hearing from our government officials …

Corona together: Say “I love you” a little bit more to those you love

StorytellERdoc, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 20, 2020

This breath is a gift …
This moment is a gift …
This life is a gift …

As with every other person, I am struggling to comprehend the staggering effects that COVID-19 has had on our society in such a short time. Gone are the carefree smiles, the uncomplicated daily lives, and the thought that we and our families are immune to unexpected death. Instead, we are witnessing a collapse in society …

Please protect all health care workers: Make PPE a priority

Raagini Jawa, MD, MPH and Amal Jawa, MBBS, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

March 20, 2020

For most of us, we have never experienced a pandemic as unique and widespread as COVID-19 during our lifetimes. There is ample data suggesting that the novel coronavirus is not only more infectious (R-naught 2-3) but also associated with increased severity of disease (average case fatality rate of 2.3 percent) than the seasonal flu. We are slowly understanding how intelligent and damaging this virus …

Physicians need to step into their calling, even if it’s not directly in medicine

Stephanie Wellington, MD

Physician

March 20, 2020

If you follow me for any time, you know that I’m about physicians owning their value, recognizing their strengths, and balancing their lives. I was doing that before it became popular to talk about.

While it has a catchy ring to it, what you don’t know is that it was not always that way for me. And no one knew. It was one of the ways that I struggled in medicine.

There …

The importance of staying humble in a pandemic

David Young, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 20, 2020

In a time where everyone is looking for answers, I see a lot of health care workers, pundits, sports figures, and talking heads presenting a lot of in-flux data as immutable fact. I’ve seen phrases like “If you go outside, you’ll kill your grandma,” and “Going out to get groceries makes you part of the problem.” I wish people, including my own colleagues and fellow front line health care employees, …

It’s scary as hell to be a doctor right now

Jenny Hartsock, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 20, 2020

I’m not gonna lie. It’s scary as hell to be a doctor right now. In Italy, which is our projected immediate future, up to 10 percent of infected people are health care workers. Health care workers are also more likely to experience severe and critical diseases. There’s not a great explanation for why this is, other than just higher risk from repeated exposure over and over to infected persons. When …

How a pandemic may kill the handshake

Lauren Fine, MD & Vijay Rajput, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 20, 2020

My grandfather was a dedicated physician. To me, he was the caring, attentive doctor depicted in the classic Norman Rockwell paintings. He was a brilliant and religious man of few but powerful words who didn’t greet his patients with a handshake, but yet he was loved by so many. He also happens to be the person who taught me as a young child why cheerios float, how lifesavers …

Read more…

How a pandemic may kill the handshake

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts