I have written a lot about how COVID has changed me. Changed medicine. Changed America. I have written about it as a pivot point. A way to build a better medical infrastructure. I have alluded to how we can use innovation, advocacy, and listening to turn 2020 into an opportunity for change. How we can use it as a way to finally admit that health disparities exist, Black Lives Matter, …
I keep going because I miss them. And I miss me.
Physicians in general are a pretty intelligent group of professionals. However, we sometimes make the mistake of thinking that we must also know a lot about almost everything because we know a lot about one particular thing. However, given the exploding pace of advancing knowledge, that idea is hubristic. But it isn’t just science and technology where we fall short.
During the COVID pandemic, one of the things most contentious has …
Why do people keep going to church?
I received my COVID vaccine on December 21st before starting an ER shift; sitting in the cold, plastic chair in a hallway-turned-vaccine-clinic, I tipped my head back to blink tears into submission as I reflected on making it this far in the pandemic without contracting COVID. Four days later, after three twelve-hour shifts, I tested positive for COVID.
The COVID vaccine did not cause my positive result; getting exposed …
COVID vaccines: side effects, myths, and madness
With COVID-19 vaccines being administered to our front-line health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel of this pandemic. Yet, given the time-limited nature of the vaccine’s development, we have yet to learn the extent to which vaccinated people can spread the virus. The COVID-19 vaccinations prevent disease, but we know little about if …
How the vaccinated may become the next super-spreaders
“Doctor, how are you doing?”
I’m really so grateful when people take the time to ask this. But when I respond, candidly, that it’s been tough and I’m definitely not doing great, I often hear, “But you haven’t had any patients who have died from COVID, have you? And you got the vaccine, didn’t you?” Fortunately, no (not yet) and yes.
My heart goes out to our ICU, inpatient, and ER teams …
As a busy primary care doctor, here is what I am facing
She was rather calm during her visit. It was the first time we’d met, and she was establishing primary care with our office and me. We were both delighted to learn she was from a small Georgia town not too far from where I previously practiced, and we quickly reminisced about the slow pace, lack of certain resources, and genuinely good, devout people that often stem from and still reside …
The consequences of the coronavirus pandemic are eternal
Experts have taken to social media to quell misinformation and address common concerns about Pfizer’s messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine, performing an important public service in support of robust vaccine uptake. However, some scientific information is being oversimplified to the point that it is misleading. The public’s decision to take a vaccine whose long-term risks are unclear should be a well-informed one. Clear communication is crucial to the process of …
Upholding the principles of informed consent in the fight against vaccine hesitancy
Introduction
Today, I had my second shot of the Pfizer vaccine and suffered an unexpected and unreported side effect. That’s the problem with a new medical treatment; you never know what might happen.
Transformation
Just a few seconds after the needle penetrated my arm, I felt a mild soreness, kind of like a flu shot. But as I sat for the required 15 minutes of observation time, a wave of something engulfed my …
An unexpected COVID-19 vaccine side effect
I write this now as both a time capsule and a vision of hope at the bitter end of 2020. At this point, a COVID-19 vaccine (the vision of hope) has been developed by several companies but has not yet received widespread distribution. Realistically, I know we are in for more quarantines, social distancing, and mask-wearing for at least another 9 to 12 months (sorry!).
My clinical work in psychiatry has …
COVID malaise, and more COVID-19 coping tips from the trenches
When the pandemic hit the U.S. – we were caught off guard. We were uncertain about how COVID-19 spread or how it killed. But amidst the chaos, health care providers have learned how to better care for infected patients today. Since March, we’ve learned that surprisingly simple actions can make a significant difference in both containing COVID-19 and improving patient outcomes.
For example, we now know mask-wearing, social distancing, and limiting …
Reducing death from COVID-19 pneumonia before widespread vaccination
On March 2nd, 2020, as New York State announced its first proven case of COVID-19, a federal court there handed down a stunning decision. For 10 years, according to the court, the United States government illegally failed to hold drug companies accountable when they did not report, or inaccurately reported, crucial data about their drugs’ safety and efficacy.
Between 2007 and 2017, the court held, the Food …
How transparent were the COVID vaccine trials?
7:42 a.m.: I got my first COVID vaccine today. I don’t feel a thing and almost wonder if I really got the injection. Then, within the first few minutes after receiving it, I feel a little lightheaded. But I realize I haven’t eaten yet for the morning. Luckily, the employee health staff had given me a water bottle, which I quickly down (after sanitizing my hands) and waiting my 15 …
The side effect of the COVID vaccine that no one is talking about
As a physician epidemiologist and former public health official, I’m constantly struck by the sheer amount of disinformation that spreads related to COVID-19. I’ll routinely encounter myths about how masks actually cause viral spread. Or I’ll be told that drinking alcohol or raw, unpasteurized milk combats the virus or that putting hot pepper in food wards off viral illnesses. Meanwhile, conspiracy theories about 5G networks …
Knowledge is power: Why science and health literacy matters
Recently, I started suspecting that RT-PCR testing was not foolproof at ruling out COVID disease after seeing a fair number of patients with typical signs and symptoms but a negative PCR. I have encountered some patients hospitalized with typical COVID pattern pneumonia, thromboembolism with multiple negative PCR tests. Some of these folks even had exposure history and the signature hallmarks unique to this virus, like multiple peripheral opacities on CT …
Why COVID PCR tests aren’t as accurate as you think
COVID-19 has turned the world on its head. A major problem we have faced since the beginning is that it had already been spreading like wildfire for a few months since the end of 2019 — before most of the world realized that it was time to take action against this respiratory virus. We’ve therefore been on the back foot from the very start.
The blunt truth on why stopping COVID is impossible
Health care has been hanging by a thread for some time — in our community and across the nation. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses inherent in an underfunded public health system, a monopolized hospital, and a fractured medical supply chain.
At the beginning of this pandemic, I wrote, “Our lives will not be saved by the government. And lives will not be saved by elected officials or large institutions. Lives will …
Is there hope for COVID with home visits?
I have never felt so alone. I was lying in bed with severe abdominal pain. Pain I never had before. Well, at least not for a reason.
As I lay there, I kept thinking, what if I die while I wait until morning. It was the middle of the night. I had not felt well since earlier the week before with a severe diarrheal illness. One that only babies have with …
Alone in the hospital in the midst of a global pandemic
In some people, COVID-19 causes mild or no symptoms at all. In others, it can cause significant respiratory distress that can lead to death. Once infected with COVID-19, is there anything that someone can do to foster a less severe infection? The answer is likely “yes,” avoid the use of outpatient steroids.
The risk factors for a poor outcome with COVID-19 include age over 65, obesity, diabetes, and a compromised immune …
COVID-19 and the use of outpatient steroids
Like most modern marriages with spouses in the same profession, ours is one based on an exquisite balance of willful one-upmanship and reluctant admiration. A pandemic with two physicians in critical care medicine, albeit in different disciplines, serves as ample cause for a seismic shift in that equilibrium.
In January, while the balance was still intact, when he remarked that the Chinese authorities should suspend their traditional New Year celebration because …
Science challenges dogma and upends previously held beliefs in its quest for truth
As cases exploded across the country, I watched with horror as I saw people go on with their daily lives as if hundreds of thousands of people were not dying, as if millions were not infected, as if our health care system was not collapsing. I watched our country – a country I once believed in – fail miserably in taking care of its own people.
In …
I am a physician who tested positive for COVID-19. My main symptom is anger.
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