Infectious disease physicians and clinicians writing on KevinMD about outbreaks, antimicrobial resistance, vaccines, and the ongoing challenge of preventing and treating infection. Contributors include the physicians who treat infectious disease and the public health physicians who track it. For a maintained record of what physicians have said about vaccines and vaccine refusal since 2004, see Vaccines: what physicians say, in their own words. For what clinicians wrote during the COVID-19 pandemic as it happened, see COVID-19: what physicians wrote as it happened.
Most of the people who debate COVID-19 vaccination are not physicians. Of those who are, not all have treated COVID-19 patients. I have.
As soon as COVID-19 vaccines became available, my entire practice was vaccinated. One elderly patient was not because he was hospitalized in another state. He acquired COVID-19 there and died.
With the availability of testing and treatment, I have routinely tested patients who were symptomatic or exposed to the …
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A message from a physician treating COVID patients
I traveled to Denver to California via train in mid-October. The train is aptly named the California Zephyr.
It is a 33-hour trip, across the high mountains of Colorado — with magnificent views of rocky canyons flanking the Colorado River – and through the scrub deserts and subdued, pink-hued mountains of Utah and Nevada.
The trip was lovely. My husband and I had gotten our COVID booster shots two weeks prior. We paid …
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Would someone please explain to me how to reconcile different versions of reality?
I need to start this blog by saying that these times do try us. I completely understand this as I continue to care for others in what is rapidly becoming the most tenacious public health disaster of my nearly 40 years in nursing.
Last week, as I searched the aisles of the local grocery store looking for tasty, nutritious items to pack for lunches, I happened across a man wearing a …
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Use a little compassion: How we treat and support each other is important
Go to the store, support small businesses … But my children are not vaccinated.
Go out to eat; buy local … But my children are not vaccinated.
Go back to work; go travel… But my children are not vaccinated.
Come celebrate, please enjoy … But my children are not vaccinated.
Kids need people; they need play … But my children are not vaccinated.
Kids need sports and activities … But my children are not vaccinated.
Kids …
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But my children are not vaccinated
I’m a doctor passionate about public health and public policy born and raised in Wisconsin and educated at the Medical College of Wisconsin (the same institute that bestowed Mr. Rodgers an honorary degree in 2018). I’m also a Packers shareholder, as is my father, a practicing physician in the state. I cheered you on for your 2011 Super Bowl win from my college dorm freshman year and even had an …
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To Aaron Rodgers, from a physician and Packers fan
Lurking in the shadows, it creeps in.
Spreading itself across the world.
Creeping into all recesses of human civilization,
like a slug oozing slime as it moves slowly and surely.
A microscopic, spikey ball of evil engineered for killing.
Attacking its prey without warning.
Attaching itself, drawing lifeblood for its existence.
A parasite of sorts, devoid of a conscience.
It matters not if victims are young, old, healthy, infirmed, rich, poor.
Existence is at risk and all are fair …
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Is misinformation deadlier than the virus?
In this small town I live in, a funeral procession is a big deal. The hearse is followed by several black cars turning into an array of family and friends cars. All of them roll slowly and sadly to the final destination.
I knew all about this funeral.
A bright, college-educated woman. Six months pregnant. She had immense faith in God. God granted immunity from COVID. God would protect her from COVID. …
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A pregnant mother dies of COVID
The day that my 82-year-old mother was scheduled to receive her first COVID vaccine, she was admitted to the intensive care unit, critically ill with COVID pneumonia.
It was late January. My siblings and I hadn’t heard from our mother in a few days, and we were worried because she lived alone. Joanie was a democrat and a CNN junkie, who was sure to be watching as the Trumps helicoptered from …
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COVID ravaged my mother’s body
At the very start of the pandemic last year, I met with a couple of patients in the office while we wore masks. Based on that limited experience, I quickly concluded that seeing each other’s faces was of paramount importance, even if over video. That, plus the infection risk, led me to close my office to in-person appointments. For more than a year, I exclusively conducted …
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Which is better: Psychotherapy using video or in-person while wearing masks?
We have been walking down a long hallway for many, many months. We left the room we resided in pre-COVID, but we have not yet found a room to rest. We are in the liminal space of COVID. This is unsettling and unnerving — liminal space often is.
Liminal space in architecture is the area between discrete, functional spaces, a way of passage, but not the place where beds are placed, …
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Crossing the liminal space of the pandemic
In March 1630, John Winthrop delivered the treatise “A Model of Christian Charity” at Holyrood Church in Southampton, England, prior to leading the first settlers of the Massachusetts Bay colony on their to journey to the New World. In his address, he referred to the new community they would found as a city upon a hill with the eyes of all people upon them. This reference to a portion of …
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The dimming of the shining city
“They are firing me for not getting the COVID vaccine. I can make more money working at Michael’s than I do at this job. I was only doing this because I like to help people. But this is it for me. I’m quitting. I’ll miss the patients, but I cannot be forced into doing something that I don’t believe in.”
The patient care tech said to me after putting my patient …
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Does pro-vaccine always have to be pro-mandate?
“Do you get compassion fatigue when you take care of smokers or patients with obesity or diabetes?”
This was in reply to an article on compassion fatigue I had posted on my Facebook page. The article was written by an exhausted physician caring for unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. My initial reaction was, “Of course not. That’s my job!” But it made me think, why was it that caring for unvaccinated patients seemed …
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Compassion fatigue and the unvaccinated
This morning, while scrolling through social media, I encountered a resounding theme. Multiple physicians posting about being challenged, disrespected, and made to feel worthless by the very people they were trying to help: their patients. Being brought to tears by the disrespect of the patient’s family members. Physician expertise blatantly questioned. Advice ignored.
Patients telling doctors – to their faces – that they “don’t like their tone” and then telling nurses …
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Honor your oath. Set boundaries. Demand respect.
With the recent onset of the Delta variant rendering havoc on an already strained economy and weary population post- the rabid COVID-19 surge, there is much debate on effective policies that negate the harmful outcomes of viral acquisition. The B.1.617.2 Delta variant originated in India and is among the most easily transmissible form of the novel SAR-CoV-2 pathogen, apart from the Alpha-Britain isolated, Beta-South Africa isolated, and Gamma-Brazil isolated forms. …
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Looking at the studies behind masks
According to the WHO, 10 to 20 percent of COVID-19 patients experience lingering symptoms for several months following infection. What we know as long COVID is now termed post-COVID condition as of October 6. Post COVID-19 condition occurs in individuals with a history of probable or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, usually three months from the onset of COVID-19, with symptoms that last for at least two months and cannot be …
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A COVID long-hauler shares her story
“HIV has been a blessing in my life.”
Lola was a 48-year-old woman living in Denver when I interviewed her in 2002 about her HIV-positive diagnosis. She said the diagnosis improved her life in important ways; she had received income and housing support, nutritional assistance, health insurance, medication assistance and primary and infectious disease health care based on that diagnosis.
She said her sense of life’s purpose had changed, her basic needs …
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HIV/AIDS vaccine underscores need for better health access
Sometimes I really look forward to something new. An alien race arriving on earth would be a nice start. I think we could all use a change in the news cycle. Because I am very tired of thinking about, talking about, and especially treating COVID-19.
In all of my years of medical practice, I have never seen anything that taxed the system and caused so much mayhem, while simultaneously producing such …
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Trapped in a cauldron of suffering, medical staff are weary
