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.
I had spent the morning in the operating room, holding open the mouth of a young man while the resident physician attempted to stabilize the fractures in his jaw bone and lace wires between his upper and lower gums, much the way one would thread a shoelace between the sides of a sneaker. Peering into the patient’s mouth, I couldn’t help but wonder if he could be an asymptomatic carrier …
Read more…
Can I belong to the medical profession without having to give up everything else?
Small businesses are a vital part of our economy. They are ubiquitous and take on numerous forms, including traditional brick and mortar spaces, kiosks, and online enterprises. They enhance our most basic capitalist principles, such as innovation, entrepreneurship, and competition. Many small business owners give of their hearts and souls, viewing their employees and customers as family. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and with it the necessary sweeping measures of …
Read more…
Support your local private practice physician. They’re a small business.
Being a parent in the middle of a pandemic is not easy. Sheltering in place with canceled daycare, school, and college, while also being a doctor or other healthcare worker, working in high-risk, high-intensity situations, presents many challenges. It also presents many opportunities.
It is possible to choose thoughts about being a physician and a parent during the COVID-19 situation that can help it feel more like an opportunity and less …
Read more…
How parenting in a pandemic is an unexpected opportunity
I have been reading about “the Italian health care system, one of the best in the world,” yet unable to keep pace with the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. Let me be honest and unpopular: the Italian health care system is rotten, and the coronavirus pandemic is showing it to the world.
I am an Italian physician based in Los Angeles. I was 25-year-old when, nauseated by a health care system dominated by …
Read more…
Stop romanticizing the Italian health care during the COVID-19 pandemic
After ten years as a hospitalist, I stopped practicing clinical medicine to focus my energy on helping doctors and other health care professionals reconnect with their professional (and personal) lives in a more meaningful way. I primarily do that through meditation, a stress-reduction technique called tapping (also called EFT), and coaching.
Since the pandemic ramped up in March, I’ve been donating my services to work with docs on COVID-related stress, and …
Read more…
A love letter to doctors, from the sidelines of the COVID-19 pandemic
A COVID-19 positive resident physician in Detroit died recently, and reportedly two more who treated patients with the virus in New York City have died this week as well; although I can’t say for certain, because their names have not been released and their stories exist only in hushed whispers of the resident community.
And there’s nothing heroic about it. There’s nothing heroic about the preventable deaths of good and generous …
Read more…
Physician deaths in the era of COVID-19: human sacrifice, not heroism
In residency programs across the country, there is ongoing disappointment and a profound sense of disruption. Match Day was canceled for soon-to-be interns. Medical school and residency graduations will be strange. Finding a place to live and moving in a time of quarantine will be difficult. The only thing certain about the transition to or from residency is uncertainty. “How do I make sense of this?” is a question that …
Read more…
A letter to medical interns, in the midst of a pandemic
It has been fascinating to see how our language has become saturated with new vocabulary in the past few weeks, as cases of COVID-19 have exponentially increased worldwide. Terms usually reserved for public health curriculums – flatten the curve, self-isolation, self-quarantine, pandemic – are now part of our daily conversations, and are even available as GIFs on Instagram stories. The language we use on a daily basis ultimately shapes the …
Read more…
Social connection in a world of physical distancing
At the end of a long shift in the hospital last week, I (Michael) stopped by the room of a patient before he left to go home with hospice. It hadn’t been long since I gave him the news that his cancer had spread and was now incurable. I asked him what was on his mind. Looking down at his papery …
Read more…
We are all living with serious illness now
As health care providers, we are facing unprecedented challenges right now. Thank you to every one of my medical colleagues for your valuable contributions at this moment.
Wellness and self-care have never been more important than they are at this moment. We must care for patients to the best of our abilities, but we must also care for ourselves. If you sacrifice your own physical and emotional health, who will be …
Read more…
In a pandemic, choosing your thoughts is where your power and control lie
Chris was my anatomy partner during medical school. We had the right side of the cadaver across from Felipe and Andrew. Felipe was the son of a famous chemist and would disappear after class. He is now an internist. Andrew was handsome and dated a beautiful classmate. He stayed at one of the teaching hospitals.
Anatomy was hard. It was our introduction to medicine. When I first saw our cadaver when …
Read more…
An anatomy lab partner lost: What would Chris have thought about COVID-19?
I’m a cardiology fellow on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many, I know suffering. In 2017, I lost my father to rapidly progressive dementia. I was postpartum at the time, and he did not even know I was ever pregnant. My stepfather — my father since I was eight years old — the only man who appreciated me and celebrated all my uniqueness and success, passed away …
Read more…
Quotes and songs to help you survive COVID-19
We are still in the office. I go daily, either dressed in scrubs or shirt and tie, in an effort to maintain some sense of normalcy. I can feel the anguish of staff who themselves are deemed “essential.” Their apprehension about the possibilities of themselves being infected adds a starchy thickener to the office atmosphere as they answer phone calls, receive medical records via fax, and schedule appointments while postponing …
Read more…
This king of all viral syndromes is here
Washington State has benefited from an early response to COVID-19; organized and isolated, the curve seems to have flattened. Within our hospitals, we continue to prepare for the worst. This includes addressing the reality of limited resources and an insurmountable number of patients, a “crisis” standard-of-care.
For many health care workers, fatigue and fear of exposure pale compared to the emotional toll of countless COVID-19 tragedies. At the forefront of our …
Read more…
Hold on to humanity while we still can
It’s the high five I’m unable to give to that five-year-old patient after I check his red throat. It’s the song I can’t sing while I look into a toddler’s ears as they cling to their momma’s neck. It’s the hug I can’t give the mom who just lost her father to cancer two weeks ago. These are the things I’ve missed over the last few weeks. This is the …
Read more…
How the pandemic affects this pediatrician’s family
The current news cycles concerning COVID-19 today are frightening. The media has portrayed COVID-19 as an amazingly deadly virus. And to some people, that is very true. But not to about 98% of those who are COVID-19 positive. The death rates still hover around 2%, and that is only out of the known – testing positive – cases. But who is the most vulnerable? If you read the news, this …
Read more…
COVID-19 has shown us that Americans are sicker than we thought
As a radiologist, it should come as no surprise that I am not a “touchy” person. Not only do I remember the first MeToo movement that coincided with the 1991 Clarence Thomas hearings, but I just assume that people don’t want to be touched unless they initiate it. A resident told me that my face turned pale two months ago when a medical student I was quizzing in …
Read more…
The effects of physical distancing will be long-lasting
