She started crying. This tough, capable, juggernaut of an ICU nurse looked just a little broken for a second while she cried. “It’s not fair. It’s immoral—or unethical. I don’t know—I know it’s the right thing. We have to protect the patients and staff but … if it were my dad! I just … I can’t go tell them that she can’t come see him when we know he’s going …
The act of being there for our patients is an act of love
As a physician epidemiologist and former public health official, I find myself confused by people’s perceptions of risk related to coronavirus, particularly as we struggle to reopen our economy amidst a surge of cases. I’ll meet an older adult with diabetes who could care less about distancing or masks, but then a healthy person in their 30’s too afraid to walk outside. I’ll encounter a mother who is too …
Perceptions of risk and coronavirus: thoughts of an epidemiologist
Sneeze, and you miss it: the public’s love for health care workers. This relationship has felt like a true Coronacoaster.
Pre-COVID: physicians were disparaged for the sins of insurers and hospital C-suites.
COVID appears: I was gifted a yard full of signage announcing “Heroes Live Here.”
COVID escalates: the World Health Organization is … defunded?
We’re held in high suspicion, yet …
No, I won’t play politics. I’m a doctor.
Almost overnight, the COVID-19 pandemic has completely disrupted how we deliver primary care to patients. Before the pandemic, telehealth seemed to be a way to deliver urgent care for acute issues to a select group of tech-savvy patients. Now, at least in my practice, the majority of primary care (acute care, chronic disease management, and preventive care) is being delivered through “telehealth,” meaning that we conduct visits virtually via video …
Envisioning the delivery of true primary care telehealth
Amidst the tangle of mail consisting of grocery ads and a retirement fund quarterly report and the membership renewal form for the botanical gardens, I spot a small manilla envelope emblazoned with the return address of my children’s school. This is what I have been waiting for with equal parts hope and dread.
Last year was supposed to be the beginning of a new era for me — the year that …
COVID and schools: Our only certainty is uncertainty
When my son was in third grade, his class took a field trip to the Spanish Military Hospital Museum in St. Augustine, Florida. This was a military facility that operated in the late 18th century. It operated at a time when St. Augustine changed hands from Spain to England and then back to Spain. The museum provides tours that recreate the bygone hospital practices. Actors put on a full surgical …
How will future generations remember COVID-19?
No matter what kind of day you are having, when you open up your email and see that subject line, it takes your breath away. While it could be a notice that Jeni’s is out of salted caramel ice cream, you know that’s not likely the topic. So, you take a deep breath, and you open it.
Ten days ago, I woke up with a fever, sore throat, and couldn’t smell …
A physician had a mild case of COVID. Here’s her story.
“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo believes that New York has vanquished the virus by good policy. Never mind that New York’s mortality numbers total to the worst in the United States. Being smashed very early by the wide and wild spread of COVID-19 since early February, by the time the lockdown occurred well over …
How many people need to be infected to achieve herd immunity?
As CNN and other outlets report, rates of COVID-19 have been overwhelming Imperial County, California, for the past two months. Bordered to the west by San Diego County, to the east by Arizona, and to the south by Mexico, the rate of new infections and deaths are higher here than anywhere else in California. Local hospitals have been flooded, and a federal field hospital continues to be at capacity. …
A Southern California outbreak highlights failures of the American health care system
Recently, the nation was riveted by photos of the wall of Portland moms who were tear-gassed while forming a human shield of linked arms and bodies to protect Black Lives Matter protesters from federal agents. These moms represent the instincts that all mothers have — fiercely protective with a drive to stand up for what they believe in, especially when it comes to the safety of …
Physician-moms fight back against anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers
A few days after my dad flew to Salt Lake City from California, he developed a small cough and fatigue, and then started getting fevers. At that time in late February and early March, we were only testing people who had come from high-risk countries (like China or Japan). After a confusing trip to urgent care and an overnight stay at the University of Utah emergency department, he subsequently tested …
4 ways to break the COVID-19 compassion walls
I am a 40-year-old Black, female pediatric psychologist, and I contracted COVID-19. So did my 95-year-old grandmother. This virus flourishes within the inequities, bred by historical and current racism, of social determinants of health, having a more negative impact on Black and brown individuals. Nevertheless, we both survived. Black Girl Magic persists, and with the privilege of education combined with the grit of advocacy, my grandmother and I became statistics …
My intersection of race and privilege with COVID-19
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.
Practicing medicine has always been hard, and as all of us have experienced over the past several months, living and working through a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime pandemic has only made it more challenging.
For those on the front lines of patient care, the added stresses …
The hidden danger to physicians in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic
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A conversation with friends and family usually starts with, “How are you holding up?” My answer is not usually about work, but rather a response of …”Well, it’s going OK, but I wasn’t really meant to be a homeschool teacher.” As the pandemic marches on, many areas of the country have discussed the delayed reopening of schools, furthering the burden of at-home education.
Articles are being published commenting on …
We are women in academic medicine, and we are doing enough
It’s 7 a.m. on a Monday morning, and my wife and I had canceled our family vacation to the beaches of Cape San Blas, Florida, where we had planned on spending our week off, relaxing on an isolated beach. My daughter wakes up at 7:15 a.m. on that Monday, and my wife immediately after nursing her thinks, “she feels warm.” Mom thermometer is almost always accurate, and with two different …
The current COVID-19 testing climate is unnecessarily complicated
Spoiler alert: If you are looking for the “right” answer as to whether or not your school should reopen for in-person teaching or if you should send your kid to school (versus virtual learning), you will not find that answer below. But you will find some factors to consider in making a decision for your family.
Given that I am in multiple Facebook physician groups and parenting/community groups, my Facebook feed …
A physician-parent’s thoughts on reopening schools
Have you noticed yourself straining to hear people wearing masks? Me too. Every interaction I have these days feels exhausting. I worry about how hard this will be in the busy ER, and especially for my colleagues and friends with trouble hearing. Even without such hearing difficulties, lip reading is a critical part of speech processing …
Anyone who has ever played sports knows the feeling of being “benched.” I’ll recall my own experience participating in middle school football. I worked exceptionally hard during practice to prove myself to the coaches. A burning, incessant desire stirred within me to be chosen as a linebacker. When game day arrived, our coaches called out our lineup. I was not included, only to be relegated to the special teams instead. …
Medical students are benched during the pandemic
The first time I had ever been present when a patient was in cardiac arrest, I was a medical student, spending a night in the emergency department of a small local hospital. An old woman was rushed in from home after she had fallen over at the dinner table; her heart had stopped – and maybe she had choked on something. It wasn’t clearly cardiogenic. But she was full code, …
A code in the time of COVID-19
Whatever we call it—burnout, moral injury, disillusionment, work fatigue, hopelessness—these did not appear to apply to me before the COVID-19 pandemic. I tried to keep up on discussions about how moral injury is a pervasive and destructive force leading health care workers to feel helpless, leave medicine, or, at worst, become suicidal. I tried to educate myself about the forces behind moral injury, such as lack of control of work, …
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