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.
I am an ER physician in Jacksonville, FL.
Yesterday, I learned that a top health official in New Zealand was reprimanded for taking his family to the beach. He did this after orders had been given to stay home, and strict social distancing had been mandated. This was not his only offense — he was also reported to have been seen riding his mountain bike. New Zealand’s outbreak has appeared to …
Read more…
Social distance, yes, but don’t be afraid of the outdoors
Real physician voices, twice a week
Join 100,000+ subscribers. Free, and one click to unsubscribe.
We know that the past two months haven’t been easy. We know about the sleepless nights, anger, tears, depression, and anxiety. We know all of this because we know what trauma does to a person, and you are in the middle of experiencing a repeated trauma. The trauma of watching patients die in ways you’ve never seen, the trauma of watching colleagues die, the trauma of knowing what exactly this …
Read more…
To every physician from the psychiatrists who are here to support you
In March, I began receiving photographs on my social media apps of my daughter’s Match Day celebration seven years ago at Tulane Medical School.
It was a glorious day, in particular, because my daughter got her first choice: Not only would she be an internal medicine resident at a top-tier hospital in New York, with a reputation for excellent training, but she would be in the same city as her sister …
Read more…
Coronavirus and my doctor daughter
If you’ve felt an uptick in urges to munch and crunch your way through the day since COVID-19 has revamped our lives, you’re not alone. It’s hard enough not to fall prey to emotional and mindless eating in the best of times. Enduring skyrocketing stress while hunkered down, we need compassion for what we’re experiencing and a redoubling of attunement to emotions and appetite regulation in order to stay healthy …
Read more…
COVID-19 isolation doesn’t have to lead to overeating
With the CDC reversing their guidelines and now recommending that the general public wear masks, many states are quickly requiring them. While wearing a mask is something tangible that people can do to feel safe and makes for a nice post on Instagram, they will, unfortunately, do little, if anything, to stop this pandemic. In fact, this crisis will only worsen as people begin taking non-essential …
Read more…
Do masks promote a false sense of security?
Coronavirus is not going away anytime soon. Health care workers are already exhausted. How will the U.S. maintain a medical workforce over the long term? There is no plan in place.
Hospitals started reorganizing and developing virus infection protocols weeks ago. Most health care workers have been in PPE for weeks. They are wearing masks, goggles, face shields, gloves for their whole shift. Many nurses work twelve-hour shifts. Anxiety levels are …
Read more…
Who will care for the caregivers?
Coronavirus has essentially altered life for the foreseeable future, and it’s clear to experts this public health crisis will only be defeated with development and implementation of a vaccine. While Coronavirus has shown us what life is can be without ONE vaccine, there is still the issue of acceptance of vaccines we already have. The resurgence of whooping cough this decade, the 2014 California measles outbreak and ~1200 cases of …
Read more…
Eliminating religious exemptions from school vaccination in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic
Since the first case of COVID-19 on January 21st, there have been countless stories highlighting the health care heroes. Individuals are risking their lives and demonstrating unanticipated sacrifices to close the wounds on a bleeding health care system. Amongst those watching these stories are students of future health care professions, getting a glimpse at what their lives might look like should there be another outbreak. Common sense would suggest supporting …
Read more…
How the USMLE fails COVID-19
Multiple times a week, I get messages asking some variation of, “How are you holding up?” I am neither an anesthesiologist, critical care, or ER physician, so I’m not three inches away from exposure while intubating patients with coronavirus. I am also not a nurse or respiratory therapist in a room dozen of times a day administering life-saving medications, performing vital assessments, or carefully managing the oxygen lifeline. I’m certainly …
Read more…
Doctors, how are you holding up? You could answer in one of 5 ways.
Several weeks ago, after hearing that I plan to begin medical school this August, someone asked me if I still would have chosen to become a physician had I known about COVID-19.
When I submitted my AMCAS application one year ago, I never imagined that I would be waiting in quarantine, wondering whether I will have a white coat ceremony. It never crossed my mind that I would be reading articles, …
Read more…
After the pandemic, would I choose medicine again?
Dr. Anthony Fauci looks tired. His voice is raspy at times. He has become the face of resistance to the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. He is present at the daily White House briefings and various networks throughout the day, allaying people’s fears and answering questions.
He does yeoman service to this country. Do we appreciate the significance of that service?
I had the honor of rounding with Dr. Fauci many years …
Read more…
Dr. Fauci is being used as a political pawn. It’s time for that to stop.
Michael Jordan. Kobe Bryant. Yao Ming. These are the biggest names in the basketball world, and all three were my superheroes growing up. Even though I’d never had the chance to meet them, to see how they carried themselves on and off the court-inspired me to push myself, to find out what my limits were physically and mentally, and to constantly create new goals for myself after accomplishing what I …
Read more…
The parallels between basketball and pandemic medicine
If you’re amazed that people are still shaking hands, waltzing around mask-free in public, and rushing off to hair salons and beaches in some states, learn to think like a therapist. Understanding the underlying motivations of people who ignore and defy COVID-19 precautions will help you relate more effectively to those in your own life.
Recently, I was pushing my shopping cart down the supermarket aisle in the direction that the …
Read more…
8 reasons why people ignore and defy COVID-19 safeguards
Across our country, Americans are under a stay at home order. People are toiling over the hardships of juggling so many things — childcare, homeschooling, working, or not working — all at once. The day that society can rejoin the public sits like a mirage of water in the desert of their isolated lives. Health care workers yearn for that day as well. In the hospital, that day …
Read more…
Will social distancing turn into doctor distancing?
American hospitals are quickly running out of resources during this devastating time. It’s not simply a lack of protective equipment and COVID-19 testing – health care workers are rapidly becoming exposed, which limits their ability to care for patients. One particularly vulnerable resource in danger of being exhausted: doctors in training. Historically, the American health care system has leaned on resident physicians. For little pay, resident physicians work strenuous, long …
Read more…
To combat COVID-19, we endanger our doctors in training
Many government officials have begun to lift some restrictions on elective surgeries and procedures for hospitals. This means that some of those of us in medical professions not on the COVID-19 front lines will be returning to a workload closer to the pre-pandemic phase soon.
For weeks, my radiology department has been relatively empty. Some have felt that having fewer personnel in the department has left us unnecessarily short-staffed for patients …
Read more…
Public health requires a broader, longer-term assessment of the pandemic
As a psychologist, I have long been aware of some of the emotional impacts that illnesses like COVID-19 can have on individuals and families. I never imagined that I would experience some of these impacts directly. Furthermore, I never could have guessed what it would feel like to be told I tested negative for COVID-19 when I was feverish and fighting for air at the height of the pandemic.
I started …
Read more…
The unsettling result of a negative coronavirus test
