Author's posts
The potential for violence against health care workers during COVID-19
Recently, the FBI foiled an attempt to kidnap the governor of Michigan. The entire story reads like a Tom Clancy novel: a group of disgruntled strangers meets and organizes through chat rooms online. They conduct tactical training in the woods, do su…
If you don’t want to wear a mask, come to work with me
I am an emergency medicine physician in an inner-city emergency department, and I would like to start by stating a simple truth: coronavirus is not going away any time soon. Cases are climbing in practically every state and show no signs of slowing do…
Please don’t make physicians choose
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 standa…
Do patients addicted to drugs truly have capacity?
Is it time to rethink how we determine the capacity of our patients who are addicted to drugs? I recently began debating this question after I took care of a young woman with endocarditis. She had a long history of IV drug abuse that had led to the d…
