I had a dream last night. I dreamt that my father wasn’t dead.
It was jumbled in so many ways. But I was able to talk to him in my “sleep.”
I watched This is Us before bed. The episode where Randall questions whether William lied to him about his mother’s death. William saw her die, but she was revived after he ran away with Randall. Somehow, that made my mind wander …
I lost my father during the global pandemic
When the federal government executed Corey Johnson at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on the 14th of January, 2021, he was COVID-19 positive. He was executed while suffering from a highly contagious respiratory illness that is killing over 4,000 Americans each day. Despite his positive diagnosis for COVID-19 and his risk for infecting those around him with this respiratory illness, Corey Johnson’s execution was not postponed. Who …
State sanctioned executions in the age of COVID-19
With COVID-19 vaccines being administered to our front-line health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel of this pandemic. Yet, given the time-limited nature of the vaccine’s development, we have yet to learn the extent to which vaccinated people can spread the virus. The COVID-19 vaccinations prevent disease, but we know little about if …
How the vaccinated may become the next super-spreaders
Those were the headlines in one of the Sunday papers.
He was around fifty years old and with his wife. They stood in front of me in the supermarket. He was in shorts and a light blue t-shirt, wearing beach flip-flops. Standard casual wear for the holiday beach town where I work at Netcare Kingsway Hospital in Amanzimtoti, on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast of South Africa.
I could see him reading the …
As I watched the vaccine rollout take place over the past month, all I can say is that I am not surprised. I watched hospital executives who never see patients jump the line, doctors having their healthy nannies vaccinated, and health systems trusted with vaccine doses have essentially no plan. It’s like we didn’t have 9 months to figure this out. All I can say is that this is the …
Vaccinating athletes will show us if the vaccine works
It is stressful enough to live with heart disease. Now, with a global pandemic, access to health care providers has shifted from in-office to telemedicine in many instances. There are challenges for patients with heart disease in this context:
Pandemic challenges for patients with heart disease
Developing the COVID-19 vaccine was the first monumental milestone on a long and arduous journey to achieving the entire U.S. population’s vaccination.
One of the barriers to achieving this task is the absence of a reliable, scalable way to uniquely identify each individual before or after they receive the vaccine. Furthermore, in the absence of this unique identifier, it is extremely difficult to reliably use existing state or regional data repositories …
A national patient identifier would make vaccinating the entire U.S. population easier
Canadians breathed a huge sigh of relief when the federal government approved the first COVID-19 vaccine and saw the first immunizations take place. The end of the pandemic and the prospect of a return to normal, whatever that means, became a real possibility.
Rolling out a national vaccination program will be no small feat. In addition to the basic logistical challenges of moving volatile product throughout the …
Not all frontline health workers who need priority vaccination are doctors and nurses
With this third surge and our ICUs at zero capacity in Los Angeles, I spent New Year’s Eve alone at my apartment, recovering from a wards rotation I had completed the night before. No revelry or celebration for me this year. For months, this virus has been wreaking havoc on our lives and slowly, then rapidly chipping away at our health care systems. I’ve seen the …
December is typically busy in the ICU. Flu and respiratory viral pneumonia cases start trickling into the ICU, interspersed with cardiac arrests, strokes, pulmonary emboli, septic shock, and COPD exacerbations. The ICU census starts creeping up.
December 2020 has been unique and challenging. There were seemingly endless days of patients coming to the ICU, only to die. People with COVID-19 and the usual ICU ailments seemed sicker than usual. Patients have …
Why this critical care doctor got the COVID-19 vaccine
“Doctor, how are you doing?”
I’m really so grateful when people take the time to ask this. But when I respond, candidly, that it’s been tough and I’m definitely not doing great, I often hear, “But you haven’t had any patients who have died from COVID, have you? And you got the vaccine, didn’t you?” Fortunately, no (not yet) and yes.
My heart goes out to our ICU, inpatient, and ER teams …
As a busy primary care doctor, here is what I am facing
She was rather calm during her visit. It was the first time we’d met, and she was establishing primary care with our office and me. We were both delighted to learn she was from a small Georgia town not too far from where I previously practiced, and we quickly reminisced about the slow pace, lack of certain resources, and genuinely good, devout people that often stem from and still reside …
The consequences of the coronavirus pandemic are eternal
Experts have taken to social media to quell misinformation and address common concerns about Pfizer’s messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine, performing an important public service in support of robust vaccine uptake. However, some scientific information is being oversimplified to the point that it is misleading. The public’s decision to take a vaccine whose long-term risks are unclear should be a well-informed one. Clear communication is crucial to the process of …
Upholding the principles of informed consent in the fight against vaccine hesitancy
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As a podiatrist, Dr. M usually focuses on feet. But years of military service and expertise in program implementation and measurement qualified him for another clinical job, setting up a COVID test site. Testing stations were available in the suburbs, but the heart of the epidemic, the urban center, needed a walk-up and drive-up option. The medical director tasked him with the job. “We can’t spare a nurse to assist …
Introduction
Today, I had my second shot of the Pfizer vaccine and suffered an unexpected and unreported side effect. That’s the problem with a new medical treatment; you never know what might happen.
Transformation
Just a few seconds after the needle penetrated my arm, I felt a mild soreness, kind of like a flu shot. But as I sat for the required 15 minutes of observation time, a wave of something engulfed my …
An unexpected COVID-19 vaccine side effect
The abysmal attempt at mass vaccination against COVID-19 in the United States is uninspiring—a prophecy seemingly set in stone by the testing debacles’ failures.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday, that of 17 million doses, only 4.8 million had been administered. That’s only 28.4 percent of distributed doses in over three weeks. Of the possible 528 million doses to achieve herd immunity (roughly 264 million …
It’s time to treat the COVID-19 vaccine campaign as if we are at war
A few weeks ago, a small rural hospital in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, received its first shipment of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and quickly began vaccinating the hospital’s health care workers and skilled nursing facility staff and residents. After the Barnes-Kasson County Hospital immunized all the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Class 1A workers and residents who requested the vaccine, it moved to the next level of eligibility and started immunizing …
The COVID-19 vaccine: We got it. Let’s get it.
I write this now as both a time capsule and a vision of hope at the bitter end of 2020. At this point, a COVID-19 vaccine (the vision of hope) has been developed by several companies but has not yet received widespread distribution. Realistically, I know we are in for more quarantines, social distancing, and mask-wearing for at least another 9 to 12 months (sorry!).
My clinical work in psychiatry has …
COVID malaise, and more COVID-19 coping tips from the trenches
Pandemic. COVID-19. Quarantine.
The words will forever be etched in our memories.
While for all the pandemic has been a challenge, it has also meant more time with family, time to learn a new hobby, and the flexibility of working from home. Its memory is one of loss of income, home, and loss of life for others. For me, the memory seared into my heart is that of me staring into a …
Why public schools need to open for the most vulnerable
There are times when I feel that I am boxed-in by this unrelenting virus, COVID-19. This microscopic entity has put the majority of the world into lockdown, affecting all aspects of human life and social interaction. The virus does not discriminate due to race, creed, or color. Be you rich or poor, a professional or laborer, you are fair game to be its next victim. It stealthily works its evil …
I am disgusted with our politicians who have used the pandemic as a political tool
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