“I am grateful that I work in a small rural hospital that is like a family. I am grateful that my organization has done everything in its power to protect us… but I hope we can do better. I hope medical workers have enough left within them to give their all …
Life in a rural emergency department during COVID [PODCAST]
One year ago, on March 14, I worked my first of many COVID shifts as a hospitalist at a large academic teaching institution in Chicago. In the beginning, I think most of us on the front lines felt a strange combination of duty, fear, and exhilaration. There was this novel virus, the world was shutting down because of it, and while the rest of society was stocking up on toilet …
Reflections on a year of COVID
“Come to triage right now, and wear your N95. A patient going straight to OR and she’s having fever and chills.”
I was summoned to the triage area of labor and delivery for a patient brought in from the ultrasound clinic and found to have absent fetal heart tones. One of my colleagues started an IV, and I ran to the OR to set up for emergency general anesthesia. The patient …
One year into the COVID-19 pandemic
Emily Watters is a physician who shares how the mRNA COVID vaccines — known as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — work. (Click to enlarge.)
The other option, the single-dose vaccine created by Johnson & Johnson, is explained here (click to enlarge):
Cartoons that explain how the COVID vaccines work
Vax’n 8, a group of physicians from Northern California working in a variety of specialties in medicine, are proud to present “My Shot!”, a song adapted from the hit Broadway show Hamilton.
“My Shot” addresses the social, scientific, and political issues currently affecting the decision to receive the vaccine against the virus SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19.
While we completely respect everyone’s freedom of choice, we as a group of physicians support …
My Shot! A COVID vaccine adaptation
Acute COVID-19 infection ranges from no symptoms (asymptomatic) to life-threatening. What about long COVID (the symptoms occurring more than three weeks after infection, also known as post-acute COVID syndrome)? Could there be thousands of people with “mild” long COVID who don’t know it? Could there be legions of people with new low-energy levels being misdiagnosed as depressed, stressed, having a sleep disorder, or being labeled “lazy”? The inability to tolerate …
Could a glass of wine diagnose long COVID?
Bloodletting may be the best-known example of a once widely used, faulty medical treatment, but there are many more. Hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women, famously touted by experts, turned out to be complicated and sometimes harmful.
The list of medical reversals is long, and one cause is common. When observational studies compare people in the community who receive treatment with those who don’t, the treatment …
A physician questions the COVID vaccine data from Israel
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.
By any measure, the past year has been difficult for everyone.
The ongoing pandemic with its widespread personal, social, and economic disruptions, as well as civil and political unrest throughout the country has clearly stretched the fabric of our society and had remarkably negative …
Hope: One of the strongest “medicines” we have to treat both our patients and ourselves
Everyone loved Mrs. Maria. She was everyone’s mom, grandma, teacher.
Maria grew up in poverty. Though her family was poor, she knew her parents and siblings loved her and loved each other. But the one thing she knew her passion was at was school. Every morning she couldn’t wait to go to school and learn more. And she knew one day she would be a teacher.
Throughout the years, Maria excelled in …
A beloved COVID ICU patient turns to comfort care
A recent conversation with a nurse evoked a metaphor for the COVID-19 pandemic. The floor on which she worked had just had several patients die from COVID-19 in rapid succession. One particularly sad case involved a man saying his final goodbye to his mother, both infected with COVID-19, through a video call because they couldn’t be in the same room as the mother passed away. The nurse said that she …
Lessons from endurance racing for combatting pandemic fatigue
I was at my gym last night (yes, it’s finally open). Billy Joel’s ballad about trust was the metronome to my squats. Though vaccinated, I was wearing my mask. Knowing the latest evidence about vaccines, my mask was only for the optics of those mostly maskless around me. I overheard the couple next to me say, “OMG. Fauci says we should double-mask. What a BSer!”
Trust is fundamental to the delivery …
Why trust is the bedrock of public health policy
As a Latina physician on the frontlines of COVID-19, it feels like a race against time to get as many vaccines as possible to the communities of color that are more likely to be infected, hospitalized, and die from the virus. A lot of effort right now is focused on the logistics of managing vaccines that need to be manufactured, stored, allocated, …
6 ways to build trust with communities of color when distributing the COVID-19 vaccine
Health workers in Canada experience endemic levels of burnout directly related to understaffing and work overload. Leaves of absence from work for mental health and stress-related issues are 1.5 times higher among health workers than the rest of the population. Increasingly, health workers are significantly reducing their hours worked to cope or leaving their jobs altogether.
That was before the pandemic. With COVID-19, we are witnessing levels of stress, overload, and burnout …
The pandemic exposes critical gaps in Canada’s health workforce planning
It’s no surprise that the PlayStation 5 (PS5) has been extremely popular since its launch in November, with over four million consoles sold since launch. However, what is surprising is that the PS5 has broken all launch month gaming hardware sales records ever, despite its steep prices at $500 for the full console and $400 for the digital edition, not to mention its launch in the …
What the PlayStation 5 can teach the vaccine rollout
It’s been almost a year since nursing home workers began fighting on the front lines of COVID-19. They’ve witnessed and experienced extreme trauma. They’ve seen seniors they care for suffer in fear and loneliness during prolonged and repeated lockdowns. They’ve seen residents fall catastrophically ill and too many of them die.
More than 17,000 seniors are dead from COVID-19 in Canada; Read more…
Nursing home workers at catastrophic levels of burnout and trauma
Applause every evening, volunteers sewing masks, personal phone calls, and check-ins – these are a few examples of the support that helped us get through the initial, brutal onslaught of COVID in New York City last spring.
A year later, many hospitals across the country are full to bursting, the staff is exhausted, and medical science is still unable to save thousands of patients from dying in isolation. And we know …
In the midst of our COVID crisis, we must learn to take care of ourselves. And each other.
In the COVID-19 environment, wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) is the norm for clinicians. Monthly, U.S. health care workers use 89 million masks. While these masks help prevent the spread of disease, PPE creates barriers to effective communication that is requiring clinicians to learn new techniques for interacting with patients. Learning new verbal and non-verbal techniques to overcome PPE communication barriers is especially important for conveying …
Overcoming PPE barriers to compassionate communication
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.
Political divisiveness has always been part of the fabric of America. Even as our Founders laid the groundwork for the United States, they understood the challenges of seeking to assemble a unified and functional country from such a wide geographic and culturally diverse …
The destructive health consequences of political polarization
The intensive care unit nurse was worried the COVID-19 vaccine would kill her.
In the past, just minutes after getting the influenza vaccine, she had hives, wheezing, and throat swelling. Her life-threatening reaction only resolved after an epinephrine injection and monitoring in the emergency room. She vowed never to get another vaccine.
With the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccine, she reconsidered her stance. Now she was in my clinic, …
COVID-19 vaccines are safe for people with severe allergies
Over the past year, we have experienced massive organizational change at an unprecedented pace. Traditionally, we could spend weeks planning how to best make a change in our workplaces, but COVID-19 was anything but traditional. Our emergency department at Saint Barnabas Health System in Bronx, NY, needed to pivot on a daily and even hourly basis, and to do so took planning and effort. In general, change is difficult, and …
How COVID accelerates change: Bridging business principles with emergency medicine
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
Read more…