Physicians, nurses, residents, and students writing on KevinMD during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, most of it in real time between March 2020 and 2022: the first weeks and the shortages, the surge, redeployment, schools and masks, the vaccine's arrival and the people who refused it, and what the years did to the people who worked through them. This archive is a primary record of what clinicians wrote as it happened, and more of it was written anonymously than any other subject on the site. For that record organized as a timeline, with the disagreements recorded as physicians made them, see COVID-19: what physicians wrote as it happened. For what physicians said about burnout in those years and since, see Physician burnout: what physicians say, in their own words.
Several weeks ago, after hearing that I plan to begin medical school this August, someone asked me if I still would have chosen to become a physician had I known about COVID-19.
When I submitted my AMCAS application one year ago, I never imagined that I would be waiting in quarantine, wondering whether I will have a white coat ceremony. It never crossed my mind that I would be reading articles, …
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After the pandemic, would I choose medicine again?
Dr. Anthony Fauci looks tired. His voice is raspy at times. He has become the face of resistance to the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. He is present at the daily White House briefings and various networks throughout the day, allaying people’s fears and answering questions.
He does yeoman service to this country. Do we appreciate the significance of that service?
I had the honor of rounding with Dr. Fauci many years …
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Dr. Fauci is being used as a political pawn. It’s time for that to stop.
Michael Jordan. Kobe Bryant. Yao Ming. These are the biggest names in the basketball world, and all three were my superheroes growing up. Even though I’d never had the chance to meet them, to see how they carried themselves on and off the court-inspired me to push myself, to find out what my limits were physically and mentally, and to constantly create new goals for myself after accomplishing what I …
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The parallels between basketball and pandemic medicine
If you’re amazed that people are still shaking hands, waltzing around mask-free in public, and rushing off to hair salons and beaches in some states, learn to think like a therapist. Understanding the underlying motivations of people who ignore and defy COVID-19 precautions will help you relate more effectively to those in your own life.
Recently, I was pushing my shopping cart down the supermarket aisle in the direction that the …
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8 reasons why people ignore and defy COVID-19 safeguards
Across our country, Americans are under a stay at home order. People are toiling over the hardships of juggling so many things — childcare, homeschooling, working, or not working — all at once. The day that society can rejoin the public sits like a mirage of water in the desert of their isolated lives. Health care workers yearn for that day as well. In the hospital, that day …
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Will social distancing turn into doctor distancing?
American hospitals are quickly running out of resources during this devastating time. It’s not simply a lack of protective equipment and COVID-19 testing – health care workers are rapidly becoming exposed, which limits their ability to care for patients. One particularly vulnerable resource in danger of being exhausted: doctors in training. Historically, the American health care system has leaned on resident physicians. For little pay, resident physicians work strenuous, long …
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To combat COVID-19, we endanger our doctors in training
Many government officials have begun to lift some restrictions on elective surgeries and procedures for hospitals. This means that some of those of us in medical professions not on the COVID-19 front lines will be returning to a workload closer to the pre-pandemic phase soon.
For weeks, my radiology department has been relatively empty. Some have felt that having fewer personnel in the department has left us unnecessarily short-staffed for patients …
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Public health requires a broader, longer-term assessment of the pandemic
As a psychologist, I have long been aware of some of the emotional impacts that illnesses like COVID-19 can have on individuals and families. I never imagined that I would experience some of these impacts directly. Furthermore, I never could have guessed what it would feel like to be told I tested negative for COVID-19 when I was feverish and fighting for air at the height of the pandemic.
I started …
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The unsettling result of a negative coronavirus test
Today I woke up to the news that a fellow physician died by suicide. As I read the article, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. My eyes watered. They still do, as I write this piece. Although I did not personally know Dr. Lorna M. Breen, an ER doctor in New York City, the …
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The unspoken death toll of COVID-19: suicide
The worldwide panic over COVID-19, and the heavy-handed government response to it, has generated a wide range of reaction among patients. As a family physician and a psychiatrist, we have seen some patients adapting well. On the other hand, many feel anxious over the thought of getting the illness or experience other negative emotional responses resulting from the lockdown. Invasive public policy intervention always comes with a host of unanticipated …
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Lockdown panic syndrome, and how to fix it
They scream and holler and march. Open up the U.S. This is a hoax.
Coronavirus is deadly.
Invisible as the virus makes its trek across our U.S. Across the universe.
Nurses and doctors and respiratory therapists are being named heroes. Signs and banners and free meals and cookies and doughnuts and loads of adoration come our way.
But we don’t want to be named a hero. We are doing our job, our profession, our …
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Protestors don’t scare or intimidate this virus
A dear midwife teacher of mine, during my intern year as an OB/GYN, told me, “You need to stop wearing those rose-colored glasses.” She told me I had to take them off to be able to understand the depth and breadth of what my patients were telling me, so I could read between the lines and become a well-trained clinician. In the years that have passed since my first year …
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My rose-colored glasses are my secret instrument for survival
When I first heard that my state is planning to reopen soon, I was shocked. I was busily seeing patients that day when I received an alert on my phone. Perplexed and stunned, I couldn’t help but to stop what I was doing, reached for some hand sanitizer, so that I could actually pick up and use my phone, and then I re-read the message.
As a …
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Reopening Georgia is a gamble. Here’s why.
The coronavirus pandemic has turned the world, and all of its citizens, around, never to be the same again. As an ICU and ventilator survivor, I focus on the drama of the patient’s room, and the reality of what is truly a tragic experience. Nineteen-ninety-eight seems like yesterday, and while it was 22 years ago, it is fresh in my mind.
The vacation abroad that fall was a sunny respite from …
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A physician’s personal experience with sepsis and ventilator support
My practice received its first question about coronavirus from a patient on January 28, 2020. Though there were over 200 deaths reported in China by that time, no one could have imagined how drastically this would come to disrupt our lives at home.
Thankfully, I had a head start.
As a doctor at an integrated telemedicine and primary care practice in New York City, nearly two out of every three of my …
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How to practice high-quality telemedicine in the era of COVID-19
Nothing about quarantine feels heroic. Nothing about sitting in an empty apartment, checking the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker every 10 minutes, feels like saving the world.
Nothing about the paper I’m writing, the pantry you’re stocking, the sale he’s completing, the workout she’s posting, the pizza they’re making — none of that feels heroic when our social media feeds are peppered with dramatic pictures of the USNS …
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Let’s not let our pride get in the way of heroism
In the last month, we have seen surgeons and shrinks alike leave the comfort of their suburban perches in order to fight on the front lines of the coronavirus war in America. While it should be inspiring to watch retired physicians return to the field to engage in the battle of their lifetimes, we should be wincing—the odds of suffering severe complications from COVID-19 are demonstrably greater amongst the older …
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Young physicians belong on the battlefront
During a recent Zoom call discussing issues of physician wellness, a common theme emerged among some of our pediatric faculty – a form of imposter syndrome. 7 p.m. cheers in New York City ring out for essential workers and medical staff. Calls, texts, and messages come in from friends and family thanking us for working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis. Yet those cheers don’t feel like they are …
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My frontline is the sideline
I am an ICU nurse in Manhattan. I have seen my share of trauma, critical illness, and sorrow. But what is happening in my hospital and hospitals across America is on a scale of tragedy not even the most seasoned clinician has experienced.
My hospital looks like any hospital in America. Serene on the outside. Typical day. Any day of the year. …
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The question you will be asked after the pandemic
