COVID-19 pandemic

1,704 articles · Since 2020

Articles, page 43

The virus takes and it takes. Physicians give and they give.

July 26, 2020Jul 26, 2020

A lifetime ago, when we first heard of a novel virus making the rounds in China, I was added to several physician groups on Facebook. The discussion surrounding the virus was academic; the distance made it easy to be objective, speculation on how severe it was, and how widely it would spread was casual and detached. Terrible what was happening in China. Those lockdown measures were so draconian. If only …

Conditions and diseases

“COVID doesn’t affect children.” You may want to rethink that.

Anonymous

July 26, 2020Jul 26, 2020

Walking into the COVID ward in the children’s hospital, those words seemed etched on an invisible wall, a wall that I wanted to choose to stay behind. It was a wall I could stay behind for the first couple months of the pandemic where multiple studies touted how children weren’t getting sick, and my hospital had seen very few mild cases of the virus in children manifesting from a fever …

Health policy

COVID-19 misinformation is a public health crisis

Jacob Uskavitch

July 25, 2020Jul 25, 2020

As a medical student, I have discussed with classmates and faculty how to handle a potential patient interaction on vaccinations. Learning how to handle a patient who may be misinformed may be best through experience rather than lectures. During the…

While anti-vaxxers currently make up a small percentage of the United States, their …

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Physician voices

Is upspeak really that bad for women in medicine?

Joan DelFattore, PhD

July 25, 2020Jul 25, 20202

A few weeks ago, I was delighted when KevinMD accepted an opinion piece I'd submitted. But I withdrew it just before publication because, on reflection, I realized that I'd been wrong. While sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, I've…

A few weeks ago, I was delighted when KevinMD accepted an opinion piece I’d submitted. But I withdrew it just before publication because, on reflection, I realized that I’d been wrong.

While sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve become an avid consumer of medical podcasts, such as those presented by JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine. The opinion piece …

Health policy

COVID-19: Here’s how to gain the public’s trust

Cullen M. Lilley

July 25, 2020Jul 25, 20203

As we all grapple with what it means to live in society battling a global pandemic that is so fundamentally altering the way we interact with one another, we are faced with several questions we haven’t faced before in our lifetime: how are we going to move forward from this? What does a post-COVID-19 world look like? When will we be able to go back to “normal”?

While all of these …

Conditions and diseases

What are Moderna investors actually betting on?

Anonymous

July 24, 2020Jul 24, 2020

Moderna's stock price has continued to climb to record highs on the premise that their novel mRNA-based vaccine technology can take control of the spread of COVID-19. Since the beginning of January 2020 to the time of the writing of…

Moderna’s stock price has continued to climb to record highs on the premise that their novel mRNA-based vaccine technology can take control of the spread of COVID-19. Since the beginning of January 2020 to the time of the writing of this article, the stock has increased by an astronomical 385 percent, based on preclinical and phase I data alone. Moderna, a vaccine-biotech company with no vaccines …

Conditions and diseases

COVID-19 hurts the people closest to you: How group identities affect disease transmission

Henry Bair

July 23, 2020Jul 23, 2020

They say you only hurt the ones you love. In the age of COVID-19, this adage has, almost ironically, attained a new shade of truth. One-on-one contact is definitely a risk factor—but so is what social scientists call "group identities."…

Even in our highly individualistic society, it’s well-documented that people sort themselves into groups based on their individual identities, attitudes, values, and worldviews. These so-called “in-groups” might be as formal as a …

Physician voices

To wear a mask is to be brave. To trust your doctors is to be brave.

Abubakr Chaudhry, MD

July 23, 2020Jul 23, 20205

The pandemic is a lie. I will not wear someone else’s fear. This is all fake news. It is remarkable to see these statements littered across the news and social media. Individuals with a fairly decent level of understanding and intelligence pandering to these ideas just go to show how strong anti-science culture has become. We forget so quickly how it started, forget those who comforted us in times of …

Medical education

A medical student’s unique education in a pandemic

Mason Bennett

July 23, 2020Jul 23, 2020

"We will cease all remaining clerkships. Please thank your preceptors, collect your things, return home, and practice social distancing." The email's words were disappointing, but not surprising. Other medical schools had already pulled their students from hospitals. My school had…

“We will cease all remaining clerkships. Please thank your preceptors, collect your things, return home, and practice social distancing.”

The email’s words were disappointing, but not surprising. Other medical schools had already pulled their students from hospitals. My school had opted to keep us in as long as possible so we could have the unique learning experience of providing health care during a pandemic. But now, safety and prudence exceeded our …

Health policy

Opening schools? The devil is in the details.

Raghav Gupta, MD

July 22, 2020Jul 22, 2020

Concern There is no debate on the insurmountable value of kids needing to be in schools. CDC data shows that children account for 6% of COVID-19 cases and 0.2% of all deaths. Yet, the system can miserably fail if bullied…

Concern

There is no debate on the insurmountable value of kids needing to be in schools. CDC data shows that children account for 6% of COVID-19 cases and 0.2% of all deaths. Yet, the system can miserably fail if bullied into opening. Children could turn into potential super-spreaders or develop multi-system inflammation, Kawasaki, or toxic-shock syndrome. And once that domino falls, we …

Physician voices

To all the mom-shamers out there: Let’s demand the collective support we, our children, and our society need

Giannina L. Garces-Ambrossi Muncey, MD

July 22, 2020Jul 22, 2020

How I long for the good old days of mom-shaming. Back then, you could tsk-tsk over any number of maternal decisions: breastfeeding or bottle-feeding; having children out of wedlock or in wedlock with another woman; staying at home, or working…

How I long for the good old days of mom-shaming.

Back then, you could tsk-tsk over any number of maternal decisions: breastfeeding or bottle-feeding; having children out of wedlock or in wedlock with another woman; staying at home, or working full time.

Nowadays, all that remains is: How she plans to educate her children this Fall.

We vilify women planning pandemic e-learning, asking them, “What planet are you on,” “Don’t you have anything …

Conditions and diseases

Using plasma to fight COVID-19

Carolyn Barber, MD

July 22, 2020Jul 22, 2020

We've gotten used to a life of restricted menu options during this pandemic, an analogy that extends all the way to our treatment if we contract COVID-19. But there's an item still on the list at most medical institutions, and…

We’ve gotten used to a life of restricted menu options during this pandemic, an analogy that extends all the way to our treatment if we contract COVID-19. But there’s an item still on the list at most medical institutions, and if it strikes you as familiar, it should: It’s been around – and working – for more than a century.

Convalescent plasma therapy, in fact, is promising enough that it’s something …

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Using plasma to fight COVID-19

Health policy

Unethical policy: Resuming federal lethal injections during a global pandemic

Charles E. Binkley, MD

July 21, 2020Jul 21, 2020

The United States government has resumed capital punishment after a 17-year hiatus. Even setting aside questions of whether the death penalty is legal, ethical, or humane, the renewal of the practice of lethal injection poses some grave concerns, particularly in the context of the global pandemic. According to Department of Justice documents, the government is using the drug pentobarbital to carry out the executions. The government’s …

Conditions and diseases

The withdrawal of effective sexual offender treatment during COVID-19

Renée Sorrentino, MD

July 21, 2020Jul 21, 2020

Public health safety measures in the wake of COVID-19 have transformed health care into virtual medicine overnight. From psychiatry to surgery, all of the medical specialties have adapted technology-enabled virtual appointments. The support for health care providers has been pervasive in the past few weeks-from celebrity shout outs to presidential gratitude. It certainly is a daunting time to be a physician. As physicians remind themselves of their ethical duties enumerated …

Patient voices

What it’s like to write about COVID-19 while it’s killing your mom

Debra A. Shute

July 20, 2020Jul 20, 2020

My mom was beyond vulnerable to the virus. May of 2020 marked two years since she'd become a nursing home resident—receiving care for several chronic illnesses. She died of failure to thrive due to Coronavirus 2019 on June 1, 2020,…

My mom was beyond vulnerable to the virus. May of 2020 marked two years since she’d become a nursing home resident—receiving care for several chronic illnesses. She died of failure to thrive due to Coronavirus 2019 on June 1, 2020, at the age of 75.

As her oldest child, her health care proxy, and a health care writer for more than 15 years, I knew that a positive result in a …

Conditions and diseases

COVID illuminates silent fear

Ruchi Puri, MD

July 19, 2020Jul 19, 2020

It's scary. Like 9/11, we have a new reference point touching everyone on the planet: life before COVID-19 and life after. Regardless if you get it or don't, the unknowns and secondary consequences are scary. Life before COVID was scary,…

It’s scary. Like 9/11, we have a new reference point touching everyone on the planet: life before COVID-19 and life after. Regardless if you get it or don’t, the unknowns and secondary consequences are scary. Life before COVID was scary, too, minus the urgency.

Before COVID, we sensed the weight of living on a sick planet. We felt powerless to change the tide of forces affecting our lives for the worst. …

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COVID illuminates silent fear

Conditions and diseases

COVID is not what women expected when they were expecting

Susan Hatters Friedman, MD

July 19, 2020Jul 19, 2020

Reproductive psychiatry, also known as perinatal psychiatry or maternal mental health, focuses on mental health concerns in pregnancy (also including planning and IVF), delivery, postpartum, and parenting. As a reproductive psychiatrist, I try to imagine myself in the situation of my patient, to conceptualize the stresses she’s dealing with, who can support her at home, and, on top of any needed meds—what sort of therapy, self-care, what strategies she would …

Conditions and diseases

Second victim syndrome in the time of COVID-19

Kara Pepper, MD

July 19, 2020Jul 19, 2020

Every physician I know has a story about an unanticipated patient event. A story that was traumatic at the time and easy to now recall in fine detail. A story that was so impactful that it still haunts them. When a patient suffers an adverse event, many people are affected — the patient, his or her family, and the health care providers. The physicians and their team who are most …

Physician voices

Public health, not medicine, is what will save us

Cory Michael, MD

July 19, 2020Jul 19, 2020

In a small community not far from my hometown, Paul sat peacefully in his self-built abode on a July day like just about any other. Happy to experience the peace of his bucolic life far from the hustle and bustle of the city, he rarely visited a doctor despite a festering back ailment that limited his ability to work. He had no retirement savings and no plan for life after …

The Podcast by KevinMD

How hospitals allocate scarce resources [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

July 18, 2020Jul 18, 2020

"We are grateful to be avoiding the need to use draconian measures for resource allocation. We have been afforded the blessing of lead-time here in Los Angeles and have the chance to learn from other parts of the world, as…

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“We are grateful to be avoiding the need to use draconian measures for resource allocation. We have been afforded the blessing of lead-time here in Los Angeles and have the chance to learn from other parts of the world, as well as other areas within the United States. We are preparing our personal protective equipment, re-organizing team structures and hospital workflow, …

COVID-19 pandemic

Articles, page 43

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