When coronavirus exploded, my family was on vacation in Colorado. We played the news nonstop, and it was frightening. I’m a control freak, a planner, and thus my worries were nonstop. What were other hospitals doing to prepare as compared to my own? Wh…
Everything feels like it’s happening out of a movie, mostly because we’ve all seen it before. Pandemic, Outbreak, even World War Z. It has never felt real, until it became real. It became real when all of my friends from my pediatrics residency in New …
Viruses typically invade our bodies through an opening. Think gastrointestinal flu, COVID-19, AIDS. Our bones, however, are normally protected from any outside exposure, so they should be safe, right? The short answer is yes and no. Of course, knowledg…
I packed my bags to head home for spring break, excited for a week with family and friends—a rare opportunity to recharge during the first year of medical school. I headed straight to the airport after my neurology exam at the beginning of March, not r…
There is an old adage within the black community that says, “When White America catches a cold, Black America has pneumonia.” African American patients with COVID-19 are dying at a significantly higher rate compared to other races. These statistics are…
As I struggled my way through nursing school, I never expected my first job as a nurse to feel like this; I was too busy dreaming of the day when I could hold the title of registered nurse. I never expected to come home crying. I never expected that, a…
Months ago, it was in the distance. International hints of a contagion, a virus in China. We heard it all too many times, desensitized by the occasional threats, conspiracy theories, and Hollywood depictions. “It’s fiction. It could never happen to …
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 …
