As chief resident of my rural Hawaii Island Family Medicine Residency program, I look back with our nation upon the past four months that turned our whole world topsy-turvey. At the start of this year, I remember when leaders of organizations, busines…
Throughout my years as a physician, I have had an abundance of moments of fear. Typically, this fear has been related to concern for my patients. A fetal bradycardia requiring an emergency Cesarean section, a postpartum woman hemorrhaging despite all f…
“Plagues are infrequent but constant, and they do not alter the conditions of mankind (everybody dies) but rather concentrate our misfortunes into moments where everyone thinks for a change that mortality is afoot.” – Albert Camus In …
Anecdotal though it may be, a team of Italian doctors and nurses, led by Dr. Luigi Cavanna, has reported apparent success treating COVID-19 patients in their homes. Realizing too many near-death patients were traveling long distances to the hospital em…
Graduating medical students early is not a completely novel concept. During WWII, there was a significant physician shortage, and various medical schools initiated a 3-year accelerated MD program to produce more physicians. These programs were eventual…
In all of my thirty years of medical practice, I have never encountered the degree of moral and ethical dilemmas as those created by COVID-19. None of us has experienced anything like this. At no time in our history has all of humanity been at risk for…
The health care system is broken. Physician burnout is at an all-time high. Patients don’t trust us. If you ask any medical student today, they will have heard at least one of these statements from their educators, often coupled with the phrase: We don…
It took some getting used to in dealing with Mae. My main function soon became acting as her bookkeeper. Each month, I would write checks for her. She was illiterate, and signing her name was about all she could do. Mae was a fairly ordinary looking la…
If you’ve had surgery before, you almost certainly remember who your surgeon was. You’ve probably thanked them countless times for getting you through a scary time. Whether they excised your cancerous tissue, repaired your ACL, or removed your inflamed…
As I drove into work this week, I felt the elephant standing on my chest with its heavy foot in the pit of my stomach. Amidst this current global pandemic due to COVID-19, I reminded myself to breathe. The idea of getting closer to the hospital made t…
