Essential clinician commentary on COVID-19 coronavirus from the KevinMD community.
It was a Thursday. It was supposed to be one of those “regular” evening shifts. Then, at 6:15 p.m., my first page went off: Bed 11, Mrs. R., Dr. H. needs to talk to you. The page came from the COVID section of the emergency department.
I immediately called back. It saddened me when I learned that our patient was a young woman health care worker in her early 50s. She …
I feet truly honored to have been asked to speak at your graduation and to have a chance to share on this day with all of you. We are experiencing a truly singular moment, and I imagine you are hoping that I might say something that would be comforting or inspiring, and I really can’t think what that could possibly be.
For the last half of your third year of residency, …
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic gripped New York City, I have come to dread calling home to my parents. Every conversation ultimately leads to the question: “Is everyone okay?” This is always followed by a pause as my parents consider how much to tell me. Over the past few months, I learned on an almost weekly basis of a new family member, family friend, or neighbor who was hospitalized, transferred …
The alarm goes off! Code blue! Code blue! The code blue team rushes to the scene. The patient is unresponsive. There is no pulse. The leader of the code team looks at the monitor and takes charge. The patient is in ventricular fibrillation (cardiac arrest) and would very well flat-line if prompt action is not taken. The leader gives clear instructions: Start chest compression. Fred, you will handle the defibrillator. …
Over the past few months, my 6-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son have been confined almost entirely to our house and backyard to shelter them from the coronavirus pandemic. They know that “the virus” is dangerous and invisible. However, like superheroes facing adversity, they found their own escape from the confines of their world to their imaginary world of superheroes. During the day, my son insists on wearing a frayed and …
I am an ICU nurse. I love what I do; It’s not just a career: It’s who I am. No other job could offer me the intimate opportunity to support and guide a total stranger through the worst (and occasionally best) days of their life. Nowhere else would I leave feeling humbled by what I do every day. Nothing compares to that. Simply put: You don’t find that sense of …
Invisible and unassuming, the radioactive spider slowly descends from the ceiling, and before he knows it, Peter Parker’s life has changed forever. With that one bite, he is transformed from a normal man into a reluctant superhero. Only, that infamous spider is COVID-19, and Peter Parker is a health care worker during these troubled times.
It may surprise you to know that many of us in health care are uncomfortable being …
With any new illness comes metaphor. It is humanity’s attempt to incorporate the mystery of disease into our own stories. We like to personify illness, give it human characteristics as a way of visualizing it. We name its actions to help lessen its unpredictability. Tuberculosis consumed. Syphilis punished. AIDS invaded. Cancer grows. COVID-19 quarantines separate and spread fear.
How long does it take for a disease or illness to become a …
Imagine there are two individuals who have been admitted to a hospital due to COVID-19, and both desperately need ventilators. One is a 60-year-old with a heart condition, and another is a 63-year-old with chronic kidney disease. Because of resource constraints, you have to decide which patient will be able to receive a ventilator. Both patients’ families are looking to you to help their loved one through this illness. With …
1. Anesthesiologists are your protector
Think about this: An anesthesiologist’s job is to protect you from the harm your surgeon is causing. Seriously. A surgeon’s job, at its very essence, is to damage your body. Now undeniably, it is with the intention of causing greater good and/or fixing something that is already broken. But in order for a surgeon to help a patient, they take a knife, saw, drill, or hammer, …
April 2020 was to be a month of personal milestones. I would be traveling to Mexico with sixty closest friends and family to marry the woman of my dreams. Twelve days later, I would celebrate my thirtieth birthday. Suffice it to say, I was looking forward to April with the excited anticipation of a child on Christmas Eve.
But that was before COVID. Before all eyes were focused on the novel …
Around three weeks ago, my 72-year-old patient, Mr. J., woke up feeling severely short of breath. He felt unusually tired, noticed a dry cough, and felt achy in his arms and legs. Suspicious of COVID-19, he and his wife called an ambulance and went to the nearest New York City emergency room.
At first, the doctors too thought it was COVID-19. However, a chest X-ray, CT scan, and a series of …
On Friday, March 27, 2020, California went on lockdown in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. It changed every Californian’s life, including my own. As the newly appointed chief scribe, the possibility that I would be jobless by the time Monday rolled around, was the last of my worries. What would happen to the patients who depended on our care? Or the physicians, nurses, and administrators that kept the center …
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As a fellow physician colleague, I felt compelled to address what medical personnel is experiencing in the COVID-19 pandemic. Needless to say, we’ve never been here before, and I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the gravity of the situation, its effects on trainees and attending physicians across the globe. While this is not a discussion about the virus, I urge you to please follow credible sources of information, …
Some media outlets and public figures have heralded the ongoing pandemic as a great equalizer, referencing the pathogen’s indiscriminate spread and disregard for national borders and tax brackets.
The sobering mortality statistics, however, dispense any notion of an equal-opportunity crisis, revealing a familiar theme among public health challenges in America: significant racial disparities exist, and communities of color are disproportionately affected.
CDC data show that blacks account for 29% of confirmed infections …
We can’t un-bungle our nation’s COVID-19 response. Political leaders acted too slowly; health agencies committed unforced errors with testing kits and, amid the confusion, an information fog settled over the land.
Americans remain afraid, perplexed, and …
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The COVID-19 pandemic has turned medical education upside-down. There has been massive disruption from exclusively virtual pre-clerkship courses to delayed clerkships to canceled graduation proceedings. After weeks of speculation, we’ve learned how the pandemic will disrupt the 2020-2021 residency application cycle. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) now recommends that all residency interviews be conducted virtually. While this is a wise recommendation, out of concern for public safety, I …
Drinking the Kool-Aid
Across the USA recently, demonstrators wielding, “Stop the madness! It is just a cold virus!” and “Let me work” signs, chanting “Freedom now” and “Fire Fauci,” dangerously demanded an end to social distancing and stay-at-home orders.
In Italy, we would assume such demonstrations were fomented by the Mafia. In America, the provocateurs are right-wing extremists, Read more…
Elise loves this book. The protagonist is a girl who, due to a desire to fit in with her friends, denies her love of lima beans. Camilla awakens with stripes on her skin, and no one can explain it. The doctors are called in, then the specialists. The scientists and experts come next, but all are stumped. …
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Like many physicians not initially on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic, I watched with growing dread as stories from doctors and nurses started coming out from hot spots first in China then in Italy and then Seattle and New York. Seeing their faces and hearing their voices, I was struck by their exhaustion and fear but also by their sense of responsibility and duty. I wanted to help, …
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