Your toddler has had a cough and runny, stuffy nose on and off for months. They also attend daycare and have a sibling in preschool. You are worried about the symptoms. You are also exhausted because your child’s coughing and congestion is not le…
Category: Conditions
3 ways to reawaken nurse purpose in the era of burnout
In September, the American Nurses Association asked the Department of Health and Human Services to declare the national nursing shortage as a national crisis. At the same time, the American Association of Critical Care Nurses found 66 percent of ICU nu…
Tired of the dying: Finding parallels in COVID-19 and HIV
Recently, while visiting with a colleague in our doctor’s lounge, I blurted out, “I’m tired of the dying.” He looked at me quizzically, “But you’re the hospice doctor.” True, death comes with my work, but the recent volume of and the loss of younger pa…
Wear your mask to protect your family
Below is a story a patient shared with me about how he went from being against mask-wearing to wearing one every day. *** Last year, my mom died from stage 4 lung cancer. Before she passed, she received her transplant at this hospital, but it was too l…
Endemic COVID-19 will be a cause for celebration
There was a time, not long ago, when COVID-19 was one of the scariest things on earth. In the summer of 2020, scientists were stunned as infections climbed and deaths spiked. They couldn’t say (exactly) how the virus spread, how deadly it was or how to…
The American public deserves more COVID-19 vaccine options
Covaxin, an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and the only vaccine to have been proven effective against all variants including the Delta variant in a Phase III clinical study, deserves to be tested in clinical trials in the U.S. for potential CDC/FDA app…
The catastrophe of men’s health and how we can help
A hundred years ago, women lived one year longer than men, but now they live five years longer than men. And things are getting worse. Currently, the lifespan of men in the U.S. is declining due to alcohol, opioids, and suicide. These trends need to ch…
Keeping a cancer diagnosis silent
It is a seasonally cold fall evening in Long Island, NY, and I am standing in a field in the middle of what should be a darkened park. Still, I am truly amazed by how bright it is lit up by lanterns with different colors demarcating patients, families,…
Navigating infertility as a Black male family physician
Black men need to be comfortable saying that we can be scared sometimes, and to share our emotions without guilt or shame. I say this as a Black man who has experienced vulnerability both as a family physician and as a patient. Over the last year, I’v…
To be, or not to be, vulnerable in a relationship
The word vulnerable is derived from the Latin, “vulnerare,” to wound. Vulnerable literally means “able to be wounded.” In common usage, we refer to being vulnerable when we’re feeling weak, fragile, and emotionally worn do…
