I have been drinking since I was 13 years old. I honestly didn’t realize that I had a problem until the last couple of years. The problem wasn’t so much that I drank in excess, or got in trouble at work, with the law, or with my family. The problem was that I couldn’t handle the full breadth of my emotions. Too much sadness, or even too much elation, was …
I stopped drinking and then there was a pandemic
To the people who say that wearing a mask perpetuates the conspiracy:
Tell that to the health care workers who have put their lives at risk to face firsthand an unknown disease. Tell that to the families of frontline workers who have contracted and succumbed to COVID-19 while their loved ones save everyone else.
To the people who say that COVID-19 does not exist; that COVID-19 is just another cold or flu:
Tell …
A frontline physician has a message for you
Black bodies are dying, and medical schools are partially to blame. Never did I imagine that I would come to the realization that as a medical student; I was being trained and conditioned to identify and treat conditions predominately in white people. It is time for medical institutions to address how medical school curriculums, which use whiteness as a scale to define normal, contributes to increased rates of mortality and …
The role of medical education in perpetuating health care disparities
As a newly minted neonatal-cardiac intensivist, I was all ready to take on the world. I mean, caring for the babies with congenital heart disease (CHD), congenital diaphragmatic hernias (CDH) and all other congenital anomalies and premature birth. I was excited and ready for service. It was my 27th year of “being a student.” I had gone through the grind of medical school, residency training, fellowship training, and an additional …
Embrace the growth mindset while practicing the humbling business of modern medicine
Doctors across America are getting strikingly similar messages from their hospital administrators—that we are highly valued, but that they will reduce our salaries due to the pandemic. Whether you are working on the frontline and risking your life (and your family’s health) with limited PPE available (and indeed locked up and rationed), or whether you are soldiering on in the outpatient clinics. Your salary is going down, whether you signed …
About your salary: We value you
I am a newly minted surgical specialist, less than one year into practice. Residency was no walk in the park, but the clinical experience, along with hours of studying, reading papers, and reviewing practice guidelines, undoubtedly gave me the tools to practice modern, evidence-based medicine. As residency came to a close and the light at the end of the tunnel grew bigger and brighter, my excitement to move on to …
We need to stop seeing patients as dollar signs
I’d like to focus on a group that isn’t discussed much: the divorced health care parent. With physician marriages ending at a rate of 24 percent and over 1 million physicians and 18 million health care workers in the U.S., this topic will undoubtedly resonate with many despite a paucity of literature. Co-parenting is hard enough—adding a pandemic can put even previously stable co-parenting in extremis. Here’s my COVID-19 co-parenting …
The divorced physician parent in the time of COVID-19
This week I will be taking the physician’s oath.
I am a person who only makes promises I can keep. Thus, I am struggling with committing myself to certain parts of the oath.
Reflecting over the last four years of medical school, I can say with certainty that I hated my medical school experience. I left my family/friends and the diverse, immigrant-cultured society that I’ve known my whole life for the homogeneous, …
I was waiting for my boyfriend to return back from cleaning his car. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the tears started rolling down my face. I was startled at the sudden deluge. I don’t cry often. We had a small argument earlier in the day, the details of which I won’t divulge here. It made me question where I get my happiness from. It led me to the conclusion that, at least …
Finding happiness in the time of COVID
I never expected to find myself in this position. Ironically, I, a family medicine physician, in a world grappling with a pandemic, became underemployed for the first time since high school. A unique set of circumstances led me to this situation, but it turned out to be far more challenging for me emotionally than I expected.
At the end of 2019, I made a decision to leave my regular job as …
A story of a family physician looking for work during the pandemic
Before becoming a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA), I was a surgical intensive care unit (SICU) nurse for decades. During that time, I often saw patients during their greatest time of need – trauma victims, transplant recipients, patients with brain tumors, ruptured aortas, and septic shock. I thought I had seen it all, but working in an improvised COVID-19 ICU has taught me to expect the unexpected, and has required …
Please don’t call me a hero. This is what nurses have always done.
My mother gave years of her life to service in this hospital. I was born in this hospital. I volunteered here for years before I started my residency in this hospital. I grew up before the very eyes of this hospital. I owe my life to this hospital, but I don’t owe my death to this hospital. And neither does my mother.
I start my shift with …
Hero or victim? My mother, the anesthesiologist.
It was the middle of March when I came back to my work shift. I got the news my floor would be COVID-19 floor that meant all patients coming to the ER with COVID-19 symptoms would be placed solely under my supervision.
I was all ready for it — at least I knew the challenges I was going to face.
The number of patients getting admitted to rule out COVID-19 kept on …
What it’s like to be a frontline physician with COVID-19 patient
As a cardiology fellow in a busy New York City hospital, my life has snowballed into chaos. Just last week, I was a pregnant doctor completing her second trimester, waddling down the halls of the hospital with an echocardiogram machine in tow, taking care of sick cardiac patients. Now a viral pandemic has invaded all remnants of this prior life.
Patients pour into intensive care units with coronavirus. Colleagues serve on …
Being a pregnant medical trainee just got more complicated in the COVID-19 era
I can’t stop mentally drafting my obituary. A coworker snaps a picture of me in full protective gear, holding a respiratory swab, and I wonder how this photo will age. I wonder about the folly of our actions now, four health care workers seated together at a computer bank in the emergency department. Likely seeding toxins back and forth as we idly banter during our shift, trying to stay calm …
From a clinician on the frontlines: I can’t stop mentally drafting my obituary
You always knew they didn’t care about you. The administration, I mean. But you knew that going into it. It’s just four years that you have to endure until you can be respected, until you make the big bucks, until you’re treated like a human being. Four years is not that long.
But you knew this going into it. That they didn’t care. You’re just a resident. Now more than ever, …
You’re just the anesthesiology resident
I am a cardiology fellow at a large hospital. I plan to keep anonymity even though I don’t think there would be repercussions from my story, but in this day and age, you never know. I was on call recently and was paged by our ED about a teenager with chest pain. OK, teenager with chest pain, big whoop. They later described that this pain was positional in that it …
Please remember that patients with COVID-19 are human beings
I hope that this letter finds you (and myself) alive and well after all this COVID-19 craziness ends. I never really got the chance to explain everything when I was taking care of you. It wasn’t your fault you ended up at the hospital when you did, and you deserved so much better.
First of all, I was a pathology resident. A redeployed pathology resident. Actually, redeployed …
I’m sorry: a letter from a pathology resident on the frontlines
My last block of medical school was supposed to be the best part of the past four years. I carefully crafted a four-week vacation from school, designed for searching for the perfect place to live during my emergency medicine residency while spending valuable time connecting with classmates I might never see again. I could never imagine my current reality of moving back into my childhood bedroom and hiding from imminent …
COVID-19 made me realize that I’m not ready to die to be a doctor
When people used to ask me what a typical day entailed for me, I would gladly share the early starts, the long days on my feet in the OR, and on-calls where anything would happen. I would laugh at how I must have a bladder of steel and cry over some of the saddest stories which came through the front door. No matter the stories, though, one thing was a …
All I ever wanted to do was to be a surgeon. But I was pushed out.
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