While millions of Americans are being told to stay home, doctors, nurses, and other health care providers are showing up to work every day to battle an invisible enemy—the deadly COVID-19 virus. With hospitals, doctors’ offices, and nursing homes facin…
I had spent the morning in the operating room, holding open the mouth of a young man while the resident physician attempted to stabilize the fractures in his jaw bone and lace wires between his upper and lower gums, much the way one would thread a shoe…
Small businesses are a vital part of our economy. They are ubiquitous and take on numerous forms, including traditional brick and mortar spaces, kiosks, and online enterprises. They enhance our most basic capitalist principles, such as innovation, entr…
Being a parent in the middle of a pandemic is not easy. Sheltering in place with canceled daycare, school, and college, while also being a doctor or other healthcare worker, working in high-risk, high-intensity situations, presents many challenges. It…
I have been reading about “the Italian health care system, one of the best in the world,” yet unable to keep pace with the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. Let me be honest and unpopular: the Italian health care system is rotten, and the coronavirus pandem…
After ten years as a hospitalist, I stopped practicing clinical medicine to focus my energy on helping doctors and other health care professionals reconnect with their professional (and personal) lives in a more meaningful way. I primarily do that thro…
A COVID-19 positive resident physician in Detroit died recently, and reportedly two more who treated patients with the virus in New York City have died this week as well; although I can’t say for certain, because their names have not been release…
In residency programs across the country, there is ongoing disappointment and a profound sense of disruption. Match Day was canceled for soon-to-be interns. Medical school and residency graduations will be strange. Finding a place to live and moving in…
It has been fascinating to see how our language has become saturated with new vocabulary in the past few weeks, as cases of COVID-19 have exponentially increased worldwide. Terms usually reserved for public health curriculums – flatten the curve,…
At the end of a long shift in the hospital last week, I (Michael) stopped by the room of a patient before he left to go home with hospice. It hadn’t been long since I gave him the news that his cancer had spread and was now incurable. I asked him what …
