Some images stick in the mind as unreal and incandescent things, despite their lived experience. My mind holds onto the gray-haired woman, stooped from age and wearing the hospital-issue facemask, standing alone with her hands clasped tightly behind he…
Mary is a woman of sixty years. She is obese. Originally from rural Alabama, she told me her aunt and uncle raised her, and they were bootleggers, making their own liquor. By age fifteen, she was drinking this homemade hooch. She never told me how…
Living the surreal experience of the COVID-19 pandemic challenges us on multiple levels. As a physician, I feel the responsibility to understand the magnitude of the situation and implement the best measures to protect my patients, trainees, my family,…
Our country, and the world, is beyond exhausted by COVID-19 and the utter chaos and destruction of lives it has caused. All people, including physicians, are being pushed beyond capacity. What do we mean, collateral damage? Originally related to war: t…
To suggest that the impact of the novel coronavirus has been nothing short of devastating – from a health perspective, to the economy, to basic social interaction – would be the most striking understatement of the decade. Daily media viewing over the …
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the structure of many people’s households has changed dramatically. Young adults who were away at college had to return home when schools closed, and many will still be at home this fall as schools continue to limi…
I am exhausted. I’m a physician in the suburbs of Houston. The latest COVID-19 infection rates in the Houston area show a steep increase in rates since reopening in May. And it’s still rising. As an infectious diseases physician in the middle of this w…
COVID. What is it to me? A sense of growing dread for primary care providers everywhere, whose patient panels read like a list of future dead. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease, emphysema. The reality is most people have no idea how close to devastation…
As I reflect on Independence Day, I think of soldiers that sacrificed their own lives for others – present and future. They knew what they were facing, and yet, continued to push forward. They imperfectly led our nation through unprecedented waters w…
Now more than ever, children and adolescents need to continue receiving routine well-child visits and regularly scheduled immunizations. From the earliest onset of the COVID19 pandemic, there has been a significant decrease in the number of preventive …
