These articles are written by anonymous clinicians. They have been selected and edited by Kevin Pho, MD.

Physician deaths in the era of COVID-19: human sacrifice, not heroism

Conditions
April 7, 2020

A COVID-19 positive resident physician in Detroit died recently, and reportedly two more who treated patients with the virus in New York City have died this week as well; although I can’t say for certain, because their names have not been released and their stories exist only in hushed whispers of the resident community.

And there’s nothing heroic about it. There’s nothing heroic about the preventable deaths of good and generous …

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Physician deaths in the era of COVID-19: human sacrifice, not heroism

How dare you, America

Conditions
April 6, 2020

I grew up with one guiding principle.  One religion.  One stone temple that I bowed to faithfully.  I kneeled at the glorious shrine of medicine.  It was the only thing I ever wanted to do with my life.

My education was vigorous.  I stayed at home and studied while my high school buddies were goofing around at the mall.  I spent quiet Saturday mornings in the law library while over a …

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How dare you, America

In the coronavirus crisis, for-profit health care kills doctors’ spirits

Conditions
April 4, 2020

I am a physician. I have worked hard to get where I am in life. I went into medicine for many reasons. The intellectual challenges. Being in a field with lots of human interaction. And of course to help people. I went into emergency medicine because I ultimately couldn’t decide on a single specialty. I liked something about each one. When I rotated through the emergency department early in …

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In the coronavirus crisis, for-profit health care kills doctors’ spirits

A call to arms for hospital administrators

Conditions
April 2, 2020

As the medical director of a Midwest community emergency department that has yet to see the New York City-levels of devastation, I am begging hospital administrators across the country to begin leading their front line health care workers in preparation to meet the enemy head-on.

It has become painfully clear in our hospital daily incident command briefings and discussions with our hospital leadership that no one is making decisions. The decisions …

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A call to arms for hospital administrators

Are Boston hospitals prioritizing money over the safety of their employees and patients?

Conditions
April 2, 2020

Growing evidence suggests that the novel COVID-19 virus can be aerosolized.  To adequately protect employees, providers require not just “droplet,” but “airborne” precautions and the appropriate healthcare worker personal protective equipment (PPE).

Appropriate PPE mandates an N95 mask. News reports for weeks have described hospitals working without the necessary protection for health care providers.

This is the case in Boston-area hospitals, which are running short on these masks. One of the city’s …

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Are Boston hospitals prioritizing money over the safety of their employees and patients?

The hospital doesn’t care: Physicians must advocate for themselves

Conditions
April 2, 2020

On Doctors’ Day, my hospital celebrated our work by giving us each a pair of cheap headphones, and also announced the death of an attending. Though the personal risk to each of us was highlighted by the recent death, the administration did not give hazard pay, or PPE comparable to other countries’, or even a guaranteed supply of isolation gowns. Just headphones a different color than the ones they gave …

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The hospital doesn’t care: Physicians must advocate for themselves

What has changed for emergency physicians?  Not much.

Conditions
April 1, 2020

“You are a hero! “

“Thank you for all you are doing!”

It is overwhelming and tremendous; it is touching and heartwarming; it is genuine and sincere.  The outpouring of support and love for health care workers and first responders has been a bright light in the dark days of the coronavirus.  But I have been forced to wonder: What has really changed?  OK, before you get outraged by that statement, hear …

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What has changed for emergency physicians?  Not much.

It is a dark day to be a doctor

Conditions
April 1, 2020

It is a dark time to be a physician.  Yes, because of the global pandemic- watching our colleagues in other countries die, staring down the barrel of not enough ventilators, reading the New England Journal of Medicine’s paper on how to choose who gets care and who we allow to die.

But we are trained for this.  We are up to the task, to take care of the ill.  What is …

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It is a dark day to be a doctor

PPE policies must reflect the needs of frontline staff

Conditions
March 30, 2020

Physicians are leaders.  As leaders, we are focused on how to ensure safety for our coworkers while also acknowledging a need for stewardship of scarce supply of resources, namely, personal protective equipment (PPE).

I have a particular interest in this topic since I am an emergency physician with a high-risk newborn at home (who spent time in the neonatal ICU just a …

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PPE policies must reflect the needs of frontline staff

A message to administrators from physicians: Lead, follow, or get out of the way

Conditions
March 27, 2020

We represent the front lines in this ongoing crisis, and we are disheartened by not only the lack of support but overwhelming greed from just about all of you.

We have kept our mouths shut and practiced medicine, providing excellent patient care, while many of you became incredibly wealthy on the backs of our hard work. Many of you have not touched or cared for a patient in years; some of …

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A message to administrators from physicians: Lead, follow, or get out of the way

Thoughts from the COVID-19 front lines

Conditions
March 26, 2020

I am an internal medicine physician directly taking care of patients admitted to the hospital who are COVID-19 positive or those who are being tested for COVID-19. Last week, my hospital created a special team dedicated to taking care of these patients. During that time, the hospital was eerily quiet: the ED no longer had patients lying in stretchers, and the inpatient medicine teams were carrying half of the patients …

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Thoughts from the COVID-19 front lines

Physicians are disposable and are taken for granted

Conditions
March 25, 2020

Doctors are begging the public for basic protective equipment.  Us. The United States of America. Supposedly the most advanced, most privileged nation in the world.

We are in a pandemic dumpster fire. There has been no centralized movement to tackle this escalating threat.  Every hospital, city, county, and state has been left to flounder on its own. I’m not the only one who’s noticed we’re completely floundering, right?  Doctors …

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Physicians are disposable and are taken for granted

The pandemic is bringing us home

Conditions
March 25, 2020

It began last week in our neighborhood, between the locals, who, out for a breath of fresh air, and dutifully in line with the new social distancing rules, began to shout back and forth through the crisp March air.

“Good morning! I hope you’re well!”

“Good morning! We’re well! I hope you are, too!”

Then goodwill took over the neighborhood email chain.

Who needs a casserole?

Just let us know! We’ll drop one off at …

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The pandemic is bringing us home

To my surgical colleagues: Please do the right thing

Conditions
March 24, 2020

As an anesthesiologist, the odds are I might get to work thirty minutes or an hour before you to prepare for the case or cases which you will perform that day. No matter what the procedure is, I am prepared for the worst possible scenario. This includes emergency drugs and an intubation plan, even if the procedure would not typically require intubation. As each patient is different and reacts differently …

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To my surgical colleagues: Please do the right thing

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

Conditions
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 …

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

Our collective struggle to fight COVID-19 coronavirus

Conditions
March 22, 2020

I hope we eventually study the COVID-19 event after a sober period of analysis and reflection as an example of a societal panic attack. This is not Ebola, with a mortality rate of over 50%, or even SARS, with a 10% death rate.  We’ve seen this movie before, figuratively and literally.

A new viral disease appears (like the swine flu in 2009), people die, the fear and misinformation spread like wildfire.   …

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Our collective struggle to fight COVID-19 coronavirus

The dangers of opioid addiction in the medical industry

Meds
March 21, 2020

The Joint Commission of Hospital Accreditation requires hospitals to ask the patient for their level of pain, just subjectively. They require we use a 10-point scale, from 0 for no pain to 10 being the worst pain ever.

I knew instinctively that this was a bad thing and would lead to more narcotic addiction, as it did eventually. But in our patients, the pain scores went down as we detoxified patients …

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The dangers of opioid addiction in the medical industry

Raw thoughts from a critical care physician

Conditions
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 …

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Raw thoughts from a critical care physician

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