COVID-19 pandemic

1,704 articles · Since 2020

Articles, page 56

Empathy in the age of misinformation

May 14, 2020May 14, 2020

Recently many of my peers in the health care and science professions have found themselves on a new, unexpected frontline in the war against COVID-19: the battle against widespread medical science misinformation on social media. It is important for us to engage empathetically if we choose to enter into this discussion. This is particularly challenging for those of us who have spent our entire careers adhering to the

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Empathy in the age of misinformation

Physician voices

How the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for class consciousness among physicians

Juliana E. Morris, MD & Simon Ma

May 13, 2020May 13, 20208

What labor struggles do a grocery worker, custodian, and doctor in the United States have in common? A few months ago, many people’s answers may have been – not much. But ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, our shared challenges…

The pandemic is revealing that physicians, under our current for-profit medical system, are workers. Doctors are being expected to labor in dangerous settings for

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Conditions and diseases

How coronavirus took my grandfather’s life

Zaki Y. Azam, MD

May 13, 2020May 13, 2020

As a first-year internal medicine resident in NYC, the physical and emotional toll this has placed on me is unmeasurable. My attending physician reminds me of someone commanding a battlefield: my “allied” residents, doctors that chose different specialties but are now deployed to my floor, “coalition” doctors, students that graduated early to help us. Medicine has been replaced by

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Physician voices

In the aftermath of COVID-19, plaintiff attorneys will have a field day

Howard Smith, MD

May 13, 2020May 13, 20202

Before COVID-19, the health care system was plagued by another epidemic: malpractice lawsuits. Much is expected of doctors, and disappointments have consequences. Lawsuits are too often a consequence. Under normal conditions, there are 46,000 malpractice claims per year. One-hundred percent begin with the allegation of medical negligence. Seventy-three percent end deciding there is none. In these 33,800 cases are no indemnity payments, but there are $767 million in defense costs.

Now comes COVID-19. Tons of disappointed patients …

Conditions and diseases

What John Snow and cholera tell us about the COVID pandemic

Brian Elliott, MD

May 13, 2020May 13, 2020

It’s hard to imagine that someone could die from diarrhea. If you live in America today, you’ve likely never heard of anyone with cholera, and certainly never of anyone dying from diarrhea. Yet, in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was fairly commonplace. Medicine just wasn’t advanced at the time. Amputating limbs of fully-conscious human beings was only recently falling out of favor with the discovery of ether as …

Physician voices

Connecting through PPE: patient communication during COVID-19

Amrapali Maitra & Kham Kidia, MD

May 13, 2020May 13, 2020

Communication is the cornerstone of patient care. Patients trust healthcare workers with whom they connect. In the current era of COVID-19, connecting with patients and their families is both critical and yet more difficult than ever before. We draw from our experiences as internal medicine residents to outline the current landscape and provide tips on how to communicate more clearly.

COVID-19 brings unique challenges to the art of communication, such as …

Physician voices

Are physicians martyrs or models?

Tracey O'Connell, MD

May 13, 2020May 13, 20204

This concept comes up in Glennon Doyle’s new #1 best-selling book, Untamed. In this memoir, she looks at her unhappy marriage through the eyes of her daughter. She has been staying in the marriage for her children, believing that getting a divorce would be bad for her kids. As she is combing her daughter’s hair, she has an epiphany: I am staying in this marriage for my little girl. But …

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Are physicians martyrs or models?

Physician voices

Celebrate health care workers by not suing them

Eric Dessner, MD

May 13, 2020May 13, 2020

In New York City, each evening at 7 p.m., the sound of people banging on pots and pans can be heard from apartment buildings within earshot of hospitals all over the city. The cacophonous clanging is a salute to the beleaguered health care workers changing shifts on the asphalt below. The ritual conveys appreciation and thousands of idiosyncratic messages of hope.

And that’s great. The gesture does, no doubt, positively impact …

Physician voices

Take a moment to pause and step outside of yourself

Sujatha Sankaran, MD

May 13, 2020May 13, 2020

When I was a child, I used to sometimes close my eyes and try to convince myself that I was someplace else. I would lie on the carpet of our living room, block out the sights and sounds and smells…

When I was a child, I used to sometimes close my eyes and try to convince myself that I was someplace else. I would lie on the carpet of our living room, block out the sights and sounds and smells around me, and imagine that I was lying on the floor of my grandmother’s flat in India as I had the previous summer, or in the soft sand of the …

Conditions and diseases

Medical care is being rationed, but not in the way you think

Ethan Sobol, MD

May 12, 2020May 12, 2020

As the pandemic loomed, there was widespread concern about running out of crucial medical resources, such as mechanical ventilators. We watched as the crisis escalated in Italy and elsewhere, where hospitals seemed overwhelmed. We prepared for the surge. Hospitals, industry,…

We prepared for the surge. Hospitals, industry, and government clamored to secure both ventilators and other valuable resources such as personal protective equipment and medications. Health care professionals were recruited to New York City and other hard-hit areas. …

Conditions and diseases

Enduring the pandemic: How to support your friend on the frontlines

Jesse O'Shea, MD

May 12, 2020May 12, 2020

Troubled by the volume of patients dying before they could even be taken out of ambulances, a New York emergency physician recently ended her own life. Are we all just vital statistics, waiting to be calculated? COVID-19 has infected and…

Troubled by the volume of patients dying before they could even be taken out of ambulances, a New York emergency physician recently ended her own life.

Are we all just vital statistics, waiting to be calculated? COVID-19 has infected and killed more than 56,000 Americans. We must remember that every single one of these deaths is a loved one—a son or daughter, a father or mother, a husband or wife, a …

Conditions and diseases

My professional life battling an RNA virus

Lawrence Hurwitz, MD

May 12, 2020May 12, 2020

I feel like I am reliving a bad dream. The race to find a treatment and/or cure to SARS-CoV-2 is reminiscent of decades of practicing gastroenterology while hepatitis C roamed the hospital wards as a death sentence for many. I…

As I peered around the ICU curtain, I could see a motionless ill man. I

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Physician voices

An orthopedic surgeon goes to the COVID frontlines

Nicole M. Montero Lopez, MD

May 12, 2020May 12, 2020

I am an orthopedic surgeon in New Jersey and recently started a new practice. Less than a week after starting, news of COVID-19 arriving in NYC was everywhere. My family, my hospital system, and the rest of the country was trying to get a handle on this virus when my daughter spiked a fever that weekend. I spent an hour calling DOH at 5 a.m. trying to figure out if …

Conditions and diseases

A vaccine alone will not be enough to recover from the impact of COVID-19: Emotional antibodies against it are needed as well

Jay Wong

May 12, 2020May 12, 2020

I was seven years old when I first got my heart broken. I was swiftly rebuffed by my second-grade crush, Brett who, upon getting gently pecked on the cheek by me one afternoon following recess, grimaced and began aggressively wiping off the invisible remnants of the kiss with the palms of both his hands, swiping vigorously up and down his cheek while shouting in utter disgust, “ew!” in front of …

Conditions and diseases

Comparing the preparedness of hurricanes to pandemics

Sarah C. Smith, DO

May 11, 2020May 11, 2020

As I stand in line at a Tampa Lowe’s today in the middle of a global pandemic, I cannot help but note the vast differences in people’s behavior around me. There is a complete dichotomy in the ways in which individuals are responding to COVID-19. Some customers who err on the side of safety are sitting in their cars waiting for curbside pickup. Others are carefully social distancing as they …

Conditions and diseases

Emergency psychiatry during COVID-19

Ruchi Vikas, DO

May 11, 2020May 11, 2020

The reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic in the comprehensive psychiatric emergency program (CPEP) began insidiously, with an initial sense of unease. Patients are brought into CPEP when they pose a danger to themselves or others. Often they are brought by police, but occasionally they come on their own or with concerned family members. CPEP is a locked unit, separated via locked double doors that require a valid ID badge to …

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Emergency psychiatry during COVID-19

Physician voices

What do you want from health care after COVID?

Rosalind Kaplan, MD

May 11, 2020May 11, 20202

In the last six weeks or so, the practice of medicine has been turned topsy-turvy by the COVID pandemic. Those weeks seem like an eternity. We have been so consumed with testing and treatment coronavirus, flattening the curve, and figuring out how to wear a mask without having our glasses fog up, that it’s hard to remember health care before COVID.

But let’s try, just for a minute. Let’s try to …

Conditions and diseases

A psychiatrist crashes into telemedicine during the pandemic

Allie Thomas-Fannin, MD

May 11, 2020May 11, 20204

As far as psychiatrists go, I admit I'm odd, even in a field known for its quirks. I'm fast-talking, irreverent, and most patients tell me I'm not what they expected, but they come back. I'm not for everyone, and that's…

As far as psychiatrists go, I admit I’m odd, even in a field known for its quirks. I’m fast-talking, irreverent, and most patients tell me I’m not what they expected, but they come back.

I’m not for everyone, and that’s OK. I love my field but didn’t always feel the field loved me.

At a conference workshop, as a PGY-III, in a room of 40 other psychiatrists, mostly attendings, the leader pulled …

Conditions and diseases

Everyone agrees nurses are heroes. Why aren’t we treating them that way?

Inge Garrison, RN

May 11, 2020May 11, 2020

It’s been said that history doesn’t repeat, but it does often rhyme. And as we’re learning during COVID-19, lessons from the past can be a guide to help us navigate a modern pandemic — if we listen to the rhythm…

For a little more than two years in the middle of the 19th century, Great Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia fought the Russian Empire for

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Conditions and diseases

How social distancing affects vulnerable nursing home residents

Palak Patel

May 11, 2020May 11, 2020

On a cold evening in early March, my grandpa and I queued outside a nursing home in rural California. He pulled an insulated lunchbox, filled with hot chai and pureed rotis, to his chest and sighed. There are at least eight families in front of us, and if we don’t move fast, my grandma will fall asleep before she’s had dinner.

Twenty minutes later, we’ve reached the threshold: a nurse takes …

COVID-19 pandemic

Articles, page 56

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