Drinking the Kool-Aid Across the USA recently, demonstrators wielding, “Stop the madness! It is just a cold virus!” and “Let me work” signs, chanting “Freedom now” and “Fire Fauci,” dangerously demanded a…
Category: Conditions
When chlamydia became TMI
“Would an STI cause abdominal pain?” someone in a class discussion asked. “Well, when I had chlamydia, I didn’t have abdominal pain,” I responded truthfully. Instantly, the group went silent. “OK, Jay. That’s … TMI,” someone else in the group quickly r…
We need to learn to accept death in the United States
Life may never be the same after COVID-19. With tens of thousands of Americans having succumbed to the coronavirus in the United States, some of us are considering our own mortality. Life insurance companies have plenty of new customers. Estate plan…
We need to learn to accept death in the United States
Life may never be the same after COVID-19. With tens of thousands of Americans having succumbed to the coronavirus in the United States, some of us are considering our own mortality. Life insurance companies have plenty of new customers. Estate plan…
The unexpected time the COVID-19 pandemic gives physicians
My three-year-old daughter calls it “canolavirus.” To her, it represents the answer to a number of hitherto unprecedented events happening in her life at this time. Her physician mommy working from home for a number of weeks now. The last she remembers…
Humility drives physicians in the face of COVID-19
One of the great responsibilities in doctoring is alleviating suffering. That hasn’t changed. But the novelty of COVID-19 makes us uncertain as we care for our patients. Anxious even. We feel helpless watching people get ravaged with SARS-CoV-2. …
We are not past the risk of COVID-19
If you’re like me and you don’t live in a state that has already started re-opening, you are likely taking a lot of walks. Regardless of where you are in the U.S., I think we can all agree that if you cough or sneeze in any public setting, you automati…
Loneliness is a silent epidemic crying out to be heard
She reached for my hand, her hands gnarled, the skin fragile, translucent, road mapped by bluish veins: Hands that had done much in her 87 years. She looked at me from her hospital bed and with voice trembling, her eyes tearing, spoke words that penetr…
Finding hope in the COVID-19 pandemic
I am a 41-year old physician in the Phoenix metropolitan area. In the course of several unforgettable weeks in March 2020, my life, like every American’s, had been drastically flipped on its head. While I feel fortunate to be able to continue to have e…
Alfred Hitchcock, COVID-19, and the MacGuffin
The last couple of months in a world with COVID-19 have felt absurd, incomprehensible, like something out of a movie. Most of us hunker down in our homes and wear masks whenever we’re out. Those who work in patient care settings try to limit risk, bo…
