Recently, the FBI foiled an attempt to kidnap the governor of Michigan. The entire story reads like a Tom Clancy novel: a group of disgruntled strangers meets and organizes through chat rooms online. They conduct tactical training in the woods, do surveillance runs of the governor’s house, and even make plans to target law enforcement personnel and blow up a bridge to hamper any response to their attack. The individuals …
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The potential for violence against health care workers during COVID-19
I am an emergency medicine physician in an inner-city emergency department, and I would like to start by stating a simple truth: coronavirus is not going away any time soon. Cases are climbing in practically every state and show no signs of slowing down. From my personal perspective, things are getting worse. Every day I am treating more and more patients who are ill with COVID-19 …
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If you don’t want to wear a mask, come to work with me
I took an oath when I graduated from medical school. The ancient, powerful words of the Hippocratic Oath are seared into the brain of every physician: “First, do no harm.” I, along with every physician who has come before me, hold myself to that standard. Every time I go to work, my goal is to deliver the best treatment to any patient who seeks my care. Yet I worry I …
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Please don’t make physicians choose
Is it time to rethink how we determine the capacity of our patients who are addicted to drugs? I recently began debating this question after I took care of a young woman with endocarditis. She had a long history of IV drug abuse that had led to the development of endocarditis. She had been admitted one week earlier and was being prepared for surgery, but she left against medical advice …
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Do patients addicted to drugs truly have capacity?
