Author's posts
A physician’s guide to surviving COVID winter
If you’re in health care, this is probably your worst winter ever. Between the COVIDs, scarce resources, shutdowns, homeschooling, bureaucracy, hoaxers, and checking the in-laws’ rashes online, you must feel cooked. You’re frustrated. Your patients die…
Patients vs. customers during COVID
Somewhere in Wuhan, China, a bat was eaten — and the world as we knew it was over. (Note to self: Never have your bat below medium, and avoid bat tartare like the plague.) Kids stayed home. So did their parents. They started talking to each other, inst…
So you want to be a doctor? Here are 10 myths debunked.
I’m glad you’re looking at a career in medicine. I hope you will be happy with your choice forever. To help you out, these are a few myths I wish somebody told me about when I was in your shoes. 1. You’ll be rich. You likely won’…
How masks are like your underwear
1. Both masks and underwear exist to contain badness. Neither works 100 percent, but they’ll curb the worst of the spill. 2. Don’t borrow someone else’s, no matter how cool they look. 3. Keep them on around strangers, unless you’ve both been tested. 4….
Something’s rotten in America’s health care
My friend, the hospitalist, was livid as he came from meeting the administration. “They said doctors cost too much!” he sputtered. “We’re an expense. An expense the hospital can no longer support. We are an expense!” He turned purple. Nice color. Like …
Why good doctors must say no
Saying no is hard. Even harder if you happen to be kind. You want to help, to make people smile, you want them to like you. Saying no doesn’t come easy. We’ve never been taught to say no. Ever since we were toddlers, we’ve been conditioned to say yes. …
Why toilet paper? A doctor tries to explain.
I roll in my bed, unable to sleep. I listen to BBC talk about the craziness that took over the world, preoccupied with this one question. What question? It’s not: “Why, Corona?” For that, I already have more answers than I want. Scientists say that COV…
The idiot’s guide to coronavirus from an emergency physician
1. Take it easy. The worst part of all this is the fear. More people die from the flu, car accidents, or guns. As of Saturday, March 7th, 19 Americans had died from COVID-19, compared to 1,177 every week from the flu, 746 from car crashes, and 294 from…
24 reasons to not vaccinate your kid
An excerpt from Stay Away From My ER, and other fun bits of wisdom. 1. You don’t like to be told what to do. Especially not by arrogant doctors, who act as if they know better, just because they’ve been through a few decades of training! 2. Your child …
What’s the hardest part of a physician’s job?
I work in the ER. It’s not an easy job. Not glamorous either. At least not as glamorous as my mother-in-law used to think. Years ago, when I declared I was going into emergency, she looked at me askance. She didn’t ask why. She looked at me with her wi…
