Infectious Disease

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.

The unexpected time the COVID-19 pandemic gives physicians

Aakanksha Asija, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 15, 2020

My three-year-old daughter calls it “canolavirus.” To her, it represents the answer to a number of hitherto unprecedented events happening in her life at this time. Her physician mommy working from home for a number of weeks now. The last she remembers mommy being home continuously for such a long stretch of time was never. I went back to work after my maternity leave when my daughter was …

Humility drives physicians in the face of COVID-19

Gloria K. Aggrey, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 15, 2020

One of the great responsibilities in doctoring is alleviating suffering. That hasn’t changed. But the novelty of COVID-19 makes us uncertain as we care for our patients. Anxious even. We feel helpless watching people get ravaged with SARS-CoV-2. We are all limited in our fund of knowledge. We know that we aren’t incompetent, but COVID-19 has made us feel impotent.

A hospitalist friend recently broke down in tears after pronouncing …

We are not past the risk of COVID-19

K. Maravet Baig-Ward, MD, PhD

Conditions and Diseases

May 15, 2020

If you’re like me and you don’t live in a state that has already started re-opening, you are likely taking a lot of walks. Regardless of where you are in the U.S., I think we can all agree that if you cough or sneeze in any public setting, you automatically feel like you may as well have a scarlet “S” hung around your neck. I have found myself looking around …

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We are not past the risk of COVID-19

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Finding hope in the COVID-19 pandemic

Lavi Nissim, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 14, 2020

I am a 41-year old physician in the Phoenix metropolitan area. In the course of several unforgettable weeks in March 2020, my life, like every American’s, had been drastically flipped on its head. While I feel fortunate to be able to continue to have employment and a source of income, I cannot deny there is a daily palpable sense that my profession puts me at a great risk for exposure …

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Finding hope in the COVID-19 pandemic

Physicians are called to care and service, pandemic or not

Melody T. McCloud, MD

Physician

May 14, 2020

“I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to be in, a position to relieve the suffering of others.”
— Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler

In a time of crisis, epidemic or pandemic, “Who ya gonna call?”: An athlete? A booty-shaking singer? Television or movie stars? Yes, entertainers’ work provide humans fun. They make us laugh, or can foster team pride. But are they heroes? Do they save lives?

Might you call …

A young doctor struggles against the emotional devastation of losing a patient

Paul Rollins, MD

Physician

May 14, 2020

We worked tirelessly attempting to resuscitate this mother of five for almost an hour. Her husband was called, and he notified us that he would be there shortly. In the end, our heroic measures were simply not enough. It is fearful to imagine being told your wife and mother to your five children is no longer alive on Mother’s Day. The uncertainty of what killed her is a tough pill …

Alfred Hitchcock, COVID-19, and the MacGuffin

Jules Lipoff, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 14, 2020

The last couple of months in a world with COVID-19 have felt absurd, incomprehensible, like something out of a movie. Most of us hunker down in our homes and wear masks whenever we’re out. Those who work in patient care settings try to limit risk, both of becoming infected, or perhaps worse, unknowingly infecting others. How can this really be happening? Everything seems to have changed overnight. The paranoia, fear, …

Family and medicine: a day in the life during the pandemic

Lisa Sieczkowski, MD

Physician

May 14, 2020

Sunlight creeps through the living room blinds. We have taken to sleeping here now on the giant sectional sofa. Most days, there is no reason to set an alarm. The dog stirs, moves from where he was nestled against one child to stretch out alongside another.

My son rolls over, clutching the impulsively purchased Sunday Citizen throw around his bony frame. He is wearing his quarantine uniform – buffalo plaid flannel …

Pandemic Wedding is the haunting image you will never forget

Michael Huang, MD

Physician

May 14, 2020

I am a full-time primary care physician and part-time photographer. When my physician assistant and practice manager asked if she could take last week off to prepare for her daughter’s wedding, naturally, I asked about the plans. Her daughter, a registered nurse, and her fiancée were planning to go ahead with their wedding ceremony in front of only a …

It doesn’t matter whether it’s COVID or cancer: We need to unite all to cure the one

Dane Dickson, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 14, 2020

Like other physicians, the past few months have left me with a multitude of feelings; helplessness, fear, anger, and uncertainty among them.

As an oncologist, I’ll confess, there’s another emotion I’ve been grappling with…frustration. As of mid-May, there will be close to 80,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. During this same time, there have been over 160,000 people who died from cancer.

I’m not trying to diminish COVID at all. COVID …

Empathy in the age of misinformation

Yenting Chen, MD

Physician

May 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

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

Juliana E. Morris, MD and Simon Ma

Physician

May 13, 2020

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 are becoming ever more apparent.

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 …

How coronavirus took my grandfather’s life

Zaki Y. Azam, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 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 …

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

Howard Smith, MD

Physician

May 13, 2020

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 …

What John Snow and cholera tell us about the COVID pandemic

Brian Elliott, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 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 …

Connecting through PPE: patient communication during COVID-19

Kham Kidia, MD and Amrapali Maitra, MD

Physician

May 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 …

Are physicians martyrs or models?

Tracey O'Connell, MD

Physician

May 13, 2020

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?

Celebrate health care workers by not suing them

Eric Dessner, MD

Physician

May 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 …

Take a moment to pause and step outside of yourself

Sujatha Sankaran, MD

Physician

May 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 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 …

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

Ethan Sobol, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 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, 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. …

Infectious Disease

Real physician voices, twice a week

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