The ability to exam patients nowadays is supremely limited due to virtual conferencing platforms being used more and more to see patients in our office. My office is now different. We hear so much about death on social media sites, the news, and in readable periodicals that we forget that some of our patients who contracted the novel coronavirus live. Not only do they live, but they also survive. And …
Conversations with 3 COVID-19 survivors
Doctors today can help more people, and prevent the spread of disease more effectively through communication, than we ever could by seeing patients one-at-a-time in person. I have realized that instant human connection through technology makes us more powerful and faster than a virus.
I began my career as a physician in the pre-iPhone era. The only way for the sick to seek medical advice was to …
Why I feel grateful to be a physician today
My husband and I have always relished being in the thick of it, “in the trenches,” we would say, at our hospital. He is a head and neck cancer surgeon, and I am a pediatric otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat specialist for children). Working at an academic tertiary/quaternary care center in a major city, with over five decades of experience combined under our belts, we feel as though we’ve nearly …
What a bag of mixed emotions these last few months have been in the face of COVID-19. I’ve watched my community doubt the seriousness of COVID as it reached the U.S., been pulled from my clinical rotations and stood in solidarity with other medical students as we brainstorm how to serve our community in this trying time, celebrated with my colleagues as we called for social distancing and effectively flattened …
We need to stop making this public health emergency political
As of this moment, 40,265 Americans have died. They loved their families and friends. They had hopes and dreams. They were moms and dads, daughters and sons, grandmas, and grandpas. They meant something to somebody. Their deaths are barely acknowledged by anyone. They exist as statistics.
This is a frightening time we live in. We are in survival mode. Our world has become very small. We cling to our immediate family. …
It’s time to honor those who died from COVID-19 by sharing their stories
My energy has been bottled up. It’s not just over the past few weeks during this pandemic. It has been bottled up and backlogged in some areas of my life for decades.
The recent turn of life events has just made it even more glaring and evident to me. It forced and demanded that I do something about it.
The traffic jam of my energy manifested itself in procrastination and putting things …
If we return to normal in medicine, have we lost the lesson of the pandemic?
My mother gave years of her life to service in this hospital. I was born in this hospital. I volunteered here for years before I started my residency in this hospital. I grew up before the very eyes of this hospital. I owe my life to this hospital, but I don’t owe my death to this hospital. And neither does my mother.
I start my shift with …
Hero or victim? My mother, the anesthesiologist.
After speaking, working, and coaching with hundreds of physician moms, guess what their #1 request at work is. Guess. A pay raise? More vacation time? Adequate maternity leave? Any maternity leave? Hint: Now, for the first time in my many decades as a physician, I am hearing the same request from white male physicians who have long since completed their training.
Another hint: Look at the title. No, nothing about me …
Physicians just want respect in the time of COVID-19
When the pandemic hit New York, I was lucky to have enough PPE to prepare myself, and my staff, for what was to come. After the 2014 Ebola scare, I stocked up on N95 masks, gowns, gloves, and face shields; I knew that should anything with even the slightest semblance to that crisis occur once more, I needed to be prepared. When the owner of Acutis Labs informed me that …
How small acts of kindness can inspire others during the pandemic
Introduction
We are doctors. We were trained to heal, to bring relief, and on occasion, to guide patients and families through end-of-life challenges. Unfortunately, with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, places such as Italy have had to suffer from needing to make life-and-death decisions for patients simply due to insufficient resources. In Los Angeles, it seems that we are on-track with preparation for the COVID-19 surge …
A Los Angeles response to the pandemic
Before the age of modern understanding and drug development, HIV sparked fear, anxiety, and panic throughout the country. My eighth-grade science teacher was the first to teach me about HIV, a virus that makes so many mistakes in replicating itself that it confuses the host’s immune system with its mutations. So fascinated by this bizarre product of biology, I knew then that I wanted to study viruses. I read all …
Capitalizing on what we know from other pandemics, with a little help from Major League Baseball
The coronavirus has certainly served to manifest our shared humanity and vulnerability. As parents, many of us are facing substantial challenges in providing for our families, as we struggle to help our children with their schoolwork, all the while hoping we can return to some semblance of normalcy soon. To continue to provide the security and love our children need in order to thrive in our homes, we must also …
A pediatrician’s tips to help you and your family during the coronavirus pandemic
The pandemic has revised the triple aim framework of health care. The simultaneous triple pursuit of improving the patient experience of care, improving the health of populations, and reducing the per capita cost of health care is currently not possible. With widespread forced lockdowns, we are unable to provide the optimal patient care experience, the health of the population is declining (limited access, postponed procedures, delayed vaccinations, etc.). And while …
The triple aim revised: financial shock, burnout, and imposter syndrome
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In the coronavirus era, I go most days to our neighborhood McDonald’s, where I purchase a cup of coffee and take it outside to a patio area where I sit and eat peanut butter crackers which I carry with me.
Today as I stood in a short line inside the facility, with persons standing the approved distance from one another, of course, an older man came up behind me and tapped …
Going to McDonald’s in the coronavirus era
As most of America approaches the one-month mark since shelter-in-place orders began, there is increasing talk of “plateauing” and debate of strategies for resuming “normal” life. Unfortunately, we continue to find ourselves without a clear path out of this unprecedented pandemic. Now more than ever, in the setting of an infectious disease crisis, health care providers must be at the forefront to advocate for those most at risk of a …
How cell phones can help lead us out of the COVID-19 pandemic
I see you.
Studying. Reading the updated guidelines for patients with COVID-19, reviewing differentials, and management algorithms for common chief complaints during this time of restricted direct patient contact. Embracing online boot camps. Completing residency paperwork. Thank you for preparing.
Relaxing. Trying out a new yoga video. Watching Netflix by the hour. Reading a new book. Going for a run or walk. Thank you for re-charging your batteries so you can serve …
An open letter to graduating medical students
As many of the spring MCAT dates have been canceled due to the onset of COVID-19, pre-med students across the country will be faced with daunting decisions on when to test and how to prepare for arguably the most definitive examination of their careers thus far. Students’ strategies surrounding the MCAT can affect anything from their academic schedule to the cycle in which they will matriculate. Throw the tremendous costs …
COVID-19 and the MCAT: What should premedical students do?
I recited the Hippocratic Oath many years ago as I donned my new white coat and made a commitment to serve humanity through the practice of medicine. That zeal to help others continued through a vigorous residency and fellowship. As life was put on hold to pursue that dream of becoming a doctor, the brakes were lifted after training as I got married and had two children. Soon, instead of …
The Hippocratic Oath versus my oath as a mother
With the public health emergency of COVID-19, there has been a renewed call to improve emergency preparedness among physicians. Varied proposals have arisen for how to improve medical education in anticipation of future disasters. While many of these proposals are reasonable, a problematic train of thought has also emerged: seeking to improve pandemic education at the cost of removing existing education on the social factors surrounding …
Pandemic lessons: Social justice is not disposable medical school curriculum
Webster’s Dictionary defines trauma as a “disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe emotional stress.”
An article in MarketWatch describes the reality of a doctor after being on the frontlines in Wuhan for two months:
Li is mentally and psychologically at a loss for what to do next. He can’t sleep or eat, he often feels dazed, and sometimes, seemingly out of nowhere, he weeps.
Nurses have described …
What happens to health care workers after the coronavirus?
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