I have dedicated 35 years of my life as a nurse: in the ICU for 33 years and behavioral health/intensive management for the last two. I thought it would be time to take a break from ICU nursing. Surely behavioral health would be a lot easier — kind of …
When I was in college three decades ago, someone close to me was diagnosed with HIV. He was in his early 20s. The only drug available was the controversial AZT, an expensive drug originally designed to treat cancer. I thought my friend would die. Since…
As an epidemiologist and former public health official, I’ve noticed a lot of coverage in the news about COVID vaccine hesitancy issues in BIPOC communities, and I, like many other clinicians, am working hard to address those issues. But there is one…
You would think that the vaccine rollout wouldn’t be so difficult. We had some brilliant scientists who raced against time and developed novel vaccines with technology never used before. Both Pfizer and Moderna used unique mRNA technology. The va…
For over a year, I have watched and witnessed the multitude of ways that COVID has ignited crisis after crisis in our country and across the world. At first, the crisis of the unknown and the ill-prepared – we as health care professionals did not know …
The term “mRNA lipid nanoparticle” has become common of late, given the use of Pfizer/BioNTech’s and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines make of nanoparticles to carry mRNA into cells. Once inside a cell, the mRNA instructs the cell to make pieces of the prote…
An excerpt from Tenacity in Children: Nurturing the Seven Instincts for Lifetime Success. Did you ever wonder why babies quickly develop a social smile and look you in the eyes? Is it surprising to learn that the muscles in your ears are set within the…
You have seen those harrowing pictures. Patients dying outside the hospitals while waiting for a bed. People on oxygen masks gasping for air-sharing beds. Dead bodies piling up in morgues. Overstretched crematoriums and burial grounds. COVID has hit…
I feel privileged to have received both of my COVID-19 vaccine doses. Although, despite the COVID-19 pandemic killing over 562,000 Americans, 37% are hesitant about receiving this vaccine themselves. The World Health Organization defines vaccine hesita…
I’ve been limiting my COVID-19 related engagement with social media because this has been a rough year. I like being a resource for my loved ones about COVID-19 stuff, but it feels never-ending. A friend of mine asked me to weigh in on a letter s…
