Category: COVID-19 / coronavirus

The hidden ventilators in America

Your town has more than enough ventilators if you know where to find them. Tens to hundreds of vents are sitting in almost every neighborhood in America, but are being utilized incorrectly.  Throughout the nation, there are facilities known as LTACs, w…

Is asking for hazard pay “not becoming of a compassionate and caring physician”?

New York University residents are seeking compensation for the increased risk they face as they are called to the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, but leadership has declined their request for hazard pay and now stands accused on social media of ga…

A neurologist is redeployed and is a better physician for it

In neurology, we all crave to “localize the lesion,” taking pride in our well-refined and meticulous physical examination skills – an aspect of my identity that was temporarily stolen from me in the era of COVID-19. As I walked into the hospital that d…

How do you grieve when you are still mourning?

Moving so quickly. Round and round. Head turning, trying to keep track. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 … faster and faster Losing count. My head spins. A doctor, Indian, like me. A friend, my age. A mother, could be my own. No time to grieve. I kept a list of your name…

The duality of being a physician-mom in the age of COVID-19

Mid-March. New York City. I can recall the moment when the otherwise ordinary sound of a patient coughing in an exam room unexpectedly became emblematic of my own risk of mortality and the emerging risk I might pose to my kids. As the COVID-19 pandemic…

A physician mother embraces the power of “and” during the pandemic

I struggle for words to describe life in the season of COVID-19. Depending on the day, I need at least a few adjectives: “peculiar,” “fine, all things considered,” “terrifying.” “Joyous” and “anxiou…

Can COVID-19 be tragically beautiful?

I pondered this question as I reminisced over the past few weeks. I grappled with these thoughts almost every moment as I have witnessed the world respond to this pandemic, the novel coronavirus: COVID-19. After my shift ended during my trek from the h…

Conversations with 3 COVID-19 survivors

The ability to exam patients nowadays is supremely limited due to virtual conferencing platforms being used more and more to see patients in our office. My office is now different. We hear so much about death on social media sites, the news, and in rea…

Why I feel grateful to be a physician today

Doctors today can help more people, and prevent the spread of disease more effectively through communication, than we ever could by seeing patients one-at-a-time in person. I have realized that instant human connection through technology makes us more …

Every time you congregate with someone from outside of your home, you are potentially responsible for deaths

My husband and I have always relished being in the thick of it, “in the trenches,” we would say, at our hospital. He is a head and neck cancer surgeon, and I am a pediatric otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat specialist for children). W…