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.

We must support nursing home residents during COVID-19 trauma

Harsh Moolani

Conditions and Diseases

April 12, 2020

Two months ago, I kneeled next to Sarah – an avid drinker of chocolate milk, ex-journalist, and new hospice resident – in a nursing homeroom. We had a knack for discussing emotions, and that day, our conversation reached the idea of suffering.

Her pain-stricken voice shared, “Did you know that we notice? When someone’s health turns for the worst, we notice. There is a special whispering that flutters throughout the building. …

Changes are needed to help today’s health care heroes

Cole Edmonson, DNP

Conditions and Diseases

April 12, 2020

On 9/11, firefighters and other first responders rushed in to protect others, and for that, they will always be heroes. Today, health care workers are rushing in to heal those with COVID-19 – at great risk to themselves. Health care workers are the true heroes of this crisis.

On routine days, clinicians caring for patients at the bedside are at far greater risk than most people in …

During the pandemic, faith keeps us together

Uzma Syed, DO

Conditions and Diseases

April 12, 2020

With the world more or less at a standstill, how do we cope with our needs as human beings? So much has changed in our world in such a short amount of time. For most of us, our rather predictable and standard routines have come to a complete standstill. It’s as if someone hit the pause button on the movie called life.

Learning the new normal in these unusual times has …

An oncologist’s prescription for managing fear and chaos in the COVID-19 pandemic

Douglas B. Flora, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 12, 2020

When physicians present at medical conferences, we usually start with a slide disclosing any potential conflicts of interest to our audience. I probably need to disclose two things here. First, I’m an infuriating and inexhaustible optimist. Second, I’m a cancer doctor but also a recent cancer patient myself, and I understand intimately how it feels when your world unexpectedly spins out of control.

With the arrival of COVID-19 on our shores …

Please don’t make physicians choose

Gregory Jasani, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 11, 2020

I took an oath when I graduated from medical school. The ancient, powerful words of the Hippocratic Oath are seared into the brain of every physician: “First, do no harm.” I, along with every physician who has come before me, hold myself to that standard. Every time I go to work, my goal is to deliver the best treatment to any patient who seeks my care. Yet I worry I …

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Please don’t make physicians choose

During the pandemic, it’s OK to be a “good enough” parent

Shayla Sullivant, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 11, 2020

The social media posts exhaust me. I see parents with colorful schedules for children to abide by during this pandemic and others who have made a zillion fabric masks to donate. Meanwhile, I’m trying to test the technology to see patients from my new home “office” and train my children that they cannot join the visits (not successful so far). The constant barrage of emails notifying me how my children …

CMS needs to permanently eliminate barriers preventing routine use of telemedicine

Magdalena Bednarczyk, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 11, 2020

On March 6, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) provided a temporary waiver to expand telemedicine services, whose use was previously limited to specific circumstances. However, as the United States grapples with the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our nation’s health care system, CMS should permanently eliminate barriers limiting the routine use of telemedicine.

As clinicians, we can …

Please remember that patients with COVID-19 are human beings

Anonymous

Conditions and Diseases

April 11, 2020

I am a cardiology fellow at a large hospital. I plan to keep anonymity even though I don’t think there would be repercussions from my story, but in this day and age, you never know. I was on call recently and was paged by our ED about a teenager with chest pain. OK, teenager with chest pain, big whoop. They later described that this pain was positional in that it …

Wisconsin and Anthony Fauci prove physicians need to and can be national leaders

Sean Jordan, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 11, 2020

If one of your patients told you he is going to go spend a few hours hanging out in the cold this week with a bunch of people who might have coronavirus, what would your advice be? That is exactly the situation thousands of people in Wisconsin faced on April 7, as the state decided to push forward with their election despite an attempted delay by their governor in the …

I’m sorry: a letter from a pathology resident on the frontlines

Anonymous

Conditions and Diseases

April 11, 2020

I hope that this letter finds you (and myself) alive and well after all this COVID-19 craziness ends. I never really got the chance to explain everything when I was taking care of you. It wasn’t your fault you ended up at the hospital when you did, and you deserved so much better.

First of all, I was a pathology resident. A redeployed pathology resident. Actually, redeployed …

COVID-19 is a story of human beings

Johnathan Yao, MD, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

April 11, 2020

As a medical student now in the time of COVID-19, many friends and family have turned to me seeking advice and guidance in an uncertain time. I’ve appreciated how my different experiences in medical school have prepared me for this responsibility. My immunology and pathophysiology classes can explain how COVID-19 spreads, how it attacks the respiratory system, and how the symptoms manifest itself. But I quickly came to realize that …

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COVID-19 is a story of human beings

The enormous potential of a universal mask policy in America’s response to COVID-19

Varsha Venkatakrishna

Conditions and Diseases

April 11, 2020

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts and officials largely cautioned Americans against wearing face masks in public. Surgeon General Jerome Adams had tweeted, “Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!” to encourage basic hygiene measures and social distancing instead. The CDC dissuaded healthy people from wearing masks as well, recommending they don facial coverings only when exhibiting symptoms. Even President Obama tweeted, “Save the masks for health care workers.” …

How do we grieve in a pandemic?

Sarah Fox, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 11, 2020

A few weeks ago, I wondered aloud whether people grieve the same in the middle of a pandemic. A pandemic or other tragedies like earthquakes or tsunamis, when there are hundreds or thousands of people grieving for their lost family members and friends, is their individual grief felt less acutely? Does it help to know that there are other families grieving like yours? Or does the individual grief get pushed …

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How do we grieve in a pandemic?

How COVID-19 affects this family physician at work and at home

Tammy Chang, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 10, 2020

I am sitting at my kitchen table. To my right is my daughter, 9; to my left, my son, 11. They are drawing, reading, doing work that their teachers have diligently sent electronically. Between quiet stretches and fighting between my kids, I try to keep up with the nonstop, detailed emails coming from my institution, Michigan Medicine, information designed to keep staff up to date, and ready to work.

I …

A physician’s letter to coronavirus

Rashmi Advani, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 10, 2020

I hate to say this, but you were right.

We hadn’t come across something such as yourself, at least in our lifetime. Young, old, retired, or working—you were an entirely new beast to us. You had the world turned on its head in a matter of months and began to swoop into our lives in the deadliest way.

You are so small, yet your ability for discreetness and complete invisibility had us …

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A physician’s letter to coronavirus

We don’t talk in terms of supply numbers. We talk in terms of days.

W. Graham Carlos, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 10, 2020

Brown paper bags line the windowsill of the COVID-19 intensive care unit at Eskenazi Hospital in downtown Indianapolis. The bags are filled with the N95 masks we’re reusing, labeled with the handwritten names of my staff: Patrick, Angela, Brittany. They are mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters.

As of this writing, we are caring for more than double our average number of ICU patients and using more than triple our average number …

A thank you to emergency physicians

Michael Ruzek, DO

Conditions and Diseases

April 10, 2020

I want to write a letter of thanks for all the sacrifices you have made for our nation during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Thank you for all the lives you have saved.

Thank you for fighting to save all the lives that were lost.

Thank you for leaving your homes each day, not knowing if or when you will hold your children or see your spouse …

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A thank you to emergency physicians

How the lack of coronavirus testing impacts primary care

Rob Lamberts, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 10, 2020

My first possible COVID-19 case came nearly three weeks ago, before there were any cases in our city. He was a healthcare professional who presented with fever, sore throat, and cough. We did the usual strep and influenza testing, both negative, but I thought that he looked different. He had some diarrhea, stomach pain, and a different look to his face that I couldn’t place.

“You might have it,” I said. …

The crisis after COVID-19: Why doctors won’t get treatment

Candace Good, MD

Conditions and Diseases

April 10, 2020

I’ve been telecommuting for two weeks, and I already feel like Bill Murray’s character in the film Groundhog Day. A college friend of mine had a term for this feeling—déjà movie. I ease into my day with the repetitive normalcy of feeding the dog and sitting with my coffee while I watch the news.

A lead story included pictures taken by Dr. Colleen Smith, a young doctor at Elmhurst Hospital in …

Even with education on hold, medical students still contribute

Orly Farber

Conditions and Diseases

April 10, 2020

I’m a third-year medical student, but my medical education, as I knew it, is currently on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Stanford has pulled its students from hospitals and clinics for the time being, following recommendations from the Association for American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

Our pre-clinical students, first and second-years, have transitioned to remote learning. Fourth-years, who have mostly completed their required rotations and have already Read more…

Even with education on hold, medical students still contribute