“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” – Albert Einstein “Mr. Thomas, are you OK?…
Category: Conditions
10 COVID-coping tips from the trenches
There is absolutely no playbook for what we are all experiencing today. The changes coming at us have been swift, mercurial, and frightening. Governments, businesses, nonprofits, and individuals have scrambled to cope with relentless waves of chaos in …
COVID-related stressors and increasing instances of substance abuse
Throughout 2020, the United States has been playing catchup against the coronavirus. As several well-researched articles have noted, lack of appropriate and timely response has been at the forefront and can be attributed to numerous factors including t…
A family physician’s COVID story
It was April 5, 2020. In the months prior, I imagined, she had been grappling with the isolation of her newfound unemployment. The pandemic’s solidarity was possibly a relief: the rare solace of the permission to take a pause. Her new days were…
There is endless profit potential to treat chronic diseases
I have noticed several articles describing how antibiotic development has bankrupted some pharmaceutical companies because there isn’t enough potential profit in a ten-day course to treat multi-resistant superbug infections. Chronic disease treatments,…
Perceptions of risk and coronavirus: thoughts of an epidemiologist
As a physician epidemiologist and former public health official, I find myself confused by people’s perceptions of risk related to coronavirus, particularly as we struggle to reopen our economy amidst a surge of cases. I’ll meet an older ad…
How will future generations remember COVID-19?
When my son was in third grade, his class took a field trip to the Spanish Military Hospital Museum in St. Augustine, Florida. This was a military facility that operated in the late 18th century. It operated at a time when St. Augustine changed hands f…
A physician had a mild case of COVID. Here’s her story.
No matter what kind of day you are having, when you open up your email and see that subject line, it takes your breath away. While it could be a notice that Jeni’s is out of salted caramel ice cream, you know that’s not likely the topic. So, you take a…
How many people need to be infected to achieve herd immunity?
“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson. Gov. Andrew Cuomo believes that New York has vanquished the virus by good policy. Never mind that New York’s mortali…
My intersection of race and privilege with COVID-19
I am a 40-year-old Black, female pediatric psychologist, and I contracted COVID-19. So did my 95-year-old grandmother. This virus flourishes within the inequities, bred by historical and current racism, of social determinants of health, having a more…
