COVID-19

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.

In these dark times of a pandemic, look to history for hope

Edwin Leap, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 1, 2020

This is a frightening time. The coronavirus is called “novel” because it is new, and what is new is often terrifying.

We don’t know enough about our new microscopic enemy. Scientists, clinicians, and policymakers are all working tirelessly with limited data and learning along the way. Consider that many diseases that we regularly face have been observed, reported, studied, and treated for decades; some for centuries (although with less success than now). Novel coronavirus …

What COVID-19 taught this physician about money

James Turner, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 1, 2020

COVID has taught me many things in and outside of medicine. Most importantly, it has taught me that the medical field is a family. There is nothing that drives a family together like a crisis. For those of us on the front lines, I’m raising a pint of the finest for you! That “front line” not only includes the doctors, nurses, and staff caring for patients sick with COVID. It …

What has changed for emergency physicians? Not much.

Anonymous

Conditions and Diseases

April 1, 2020

“You are a hero! “

“Thank you for all you are doing!”

It is overwhelming and tremendous; it is touching and heartwarming; it is genuine and sincere. The outpouring of support and love for health care workers and first responders has been a bright light in the dark days of the coronavirus. But I have been forced to wonder: What has really changed? OK, before you get outraged by that statement, hear …

The angst and guilt of an older physician

Eliot Nierman, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 1, 2020

I am writing this a bit selfishly as part of personal catharsis, and it has been helpful serving that purpose and helping me better understand what I am experiencing. If, however, some of it strikes a meaningful chord or you have some critique or suggestions, then, of course, I am delighted to hear from you.

While we all are under stress, I have been feeling angst I …

Fighting COVID-19: Don’t let health care workers become collateral damage

Crystal Wong, MD, Suzan Song, MD, PhD, MPH, and Sara Kerley, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 1, 2020

Last week’s death of the first nurse to die from COVID-19 in New York City infuriated health care colleagues who blamed his death on lack of protective gear. Across the U.S., health care workers are scrambling to design makeshift personal protective equipment, also known as PPE. Nurses are resorting to wearing Hefty trash bags because they have run out of gowns. …

Will COVID-19 stop the devaluation of physicians?

Mark Lopatin, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 1, 2020

About a year ago, I wrote about how physicians are being devalued. More recently, I posted on my Facebook page how, in the current time of need, physicians are suddenly being valued more. I noted how in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the powers that be are turning to the same physicians to lead us out of the crisis. I alluded to compromises being contemplated …

Faced with terrible decisions, but making the right choices

Geoff Tyrrell, DMin

Conditions and Diseases

April 1, 2020

Faced with the prospect of not being able to provide all COVID-19 patients with the life support that they may need, physicians and nurses are working in conditions that have been described as “hell.”

How are providers to cope with the trauma they are experiencing in New York and Italy, and presumably other nations as well? How are they to cope with the moral implications of the …

If social distancing isn’t hard for you, you’re doing it wrong

Amy Garlove, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 1, 2020

I am not a germaphobe. I have never wiped a grocery cart handle before now. I don’t wear a mask during flu season in my office. I love for my kids to play in the dirt, and I welcome the daily exposures they have in our house, school, and life. I have the utmost respect for the immune system and the amazing job it does every single day, battling more …

Fear and love in the time of a pandemic

Rabia Jalal, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 1, 2020

Coronavirus, COVID-19, social distancing, quarantine, flatten the curve, wash your hands, do not touch your face: These are not terms that I am reading out of any of my of medical school books, these are terms that have become a reality for every household in the world, irrespective of nationality, socioeconomic status, gender, creed, etc.

I write this article not as a physician, but as a person full of fear and …

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Fear and love in the time of a pandemic

COVID-19 and the toll on health care workers’ mental health

Amira Athanasios, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 1, 2020

It is well known that physicians are more likely to screen positive for depression and have higher rates of suicide than their counterparts in the general population. But how is this fact exacerbated by the global pandemic of fear, anxiety, and mounting death tolls known as COVID-19?

For starters, health care workers are at the front lines of the emerging disaster, having to set aside their own …

People are ignoring social distancing guidelines. We must get it together.

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 31, 2020

I recently received a postcard in the mail titled “President Trump’s Coronavirus Guidelines for America.” The first of these recommendations is to follow the directions of my state and local authorities.

In my community, notable restrictions on commerce have been handed down by my governor, my mayor, and a county judge. This has had a crippling effect on our local economy as we brace for the storm to get worse. For …

The small practice primary care response to COVID-19

Talal Khan, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 31, 2020

I am scared as I sit down to write about our journey as a small practice as we fight along with the rest of the world against the unthinkable force of nature in the form of a COVID-19 pandemic. My small primary care practice is only two years old. In a time when medical practices are already dying, the financial consequences of social distancing as a response to COVID-19 can …

Being a doctor is not what it used to be

Raviraj Patel, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 31, 2020

All my life, I’ve been told that I will have job security. No matter what, as a doctor, I will always have a job despite whatever may come. I have chosen one of the most stable and secure jobs that exist. But did I?

Coming from a family of clinicians — seven physicians, two nurses, and one LPN — one would assume that we are safe and secure, for …

A resident physician’s reflections on COVID-19

Poornima Oruganti, MD, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

March 31, 2020

As I change out of my scrubs in the resident lounge bathroom, I am exhausted and numb. I put on sweatpants and a T-shirt, taking care of folding my scrubs to avoid touching the dirty spots. I wipe my phone and keys with an antibacterial and antiviral hospital wipe, and place them into my bag. I hang my white coat on a wall hook in my workroom, my stethoscope in …

In the midst of a global health crisis, USMLE Step 1 needs to be made pass/fail now

Anna Delamerced

Conditions and Diseases

March 31, 2020

Every aspect of life has been affected by COVID-19, including medical education.

Since March 17, medical schools across the nation have suspended clinical rotations, per guidelines from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The target end date for this temporary pause was set originally to March 31.

The National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) followed suit, declaring that Prometric testing centers were closing …

The doctors cry. The world applauds.

Rinki Goswami

Conditions and Diseases

March 31, 2020

Two weeks ago, I wrote to describe our pandemic situation as a labor of love. Now, as a fourth-year medical student – the only word I can find is: fury. I am absolutely furious. I am furious that the country’s leading public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has been muzzled and not permitted to speak directly to our people. I am furious that our federal …

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The doctors cry. The world applauds.

We can’t build our way out of the ventilator shortage. But there is a solution.

Deep Ramachandran, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 31, 2020

“Hey buddy, can you spare some ventilators?”

No, this is not an attempt at dark humor. This is the preamble of numerous calls that are going on across the nation right now. Whether the call is made to a ventilator manufacturer or to other medical centers, hospitals are busy stocking up on the highly technical devices that are anticipated to be in short supply. Here in North Carolina, where …

The inspiring concern and connection between health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic

Nina Shapiro, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 31, 2020

The current pandemic of COVID-19 has already brought out the best and the worst in people all over the world. These dark days have also brought out some deep-seeded feelings of fear, anger, selfishness, and, thankfully, selflessness. As a surgeon in a busy tertiary care center, and as a human living in tony Los Angeles, I see the best and the worst in humanity in a matter of minutes each …

Racially equitable decisions in the era of COVID-19

Andrew Spector, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 31, 2020

Several weeks ago, Americans physicians started receiving reports that our Italian colleagues were being forced to decide which of their patients would receive life-sustaining therapy for COVID-19. Across the United States, American physicians are on the brink of similar devastating choices, if they’re not there already. Some states have started preparing by creating guidelines to help physicians make …

False negative: COVID-19 testing’s catch-22

Dr. Saurabh Jha

Conditions and Diseases

March 31, 2020

In a physician WhatsApp group, a doctor posted he had a fever of 101 degrees Fahrenheit and muscle ache, gently confessing that it felt like his typical “man flu” which heals with rest and scotch. He worried that he had coronavirus. When the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for the virus on his nasal swab came back negative, he jubilantly announced his relief.

Like Twitter, in WhatsApp, emotions quickly outstrip facts. …