Category: COVID-19 / coronavirus

Approach the gun violence epidemic like we do with coronavirus

Among industrialized nations, only the United States endures the current public health epidemic of firearm-assisted injury and death. In 2018, nearly 40,000 people were shot to death in the U.S., while proponents of the Second Amendment continue to pro…

What 3 years of sitting on Japanese toilets taught me

The first time I stepped foot in Japan was the summer of 2014. I was a wide-eyed, overzealous sophomore at Yale, all packed and ready to embark on a 2-month journey to Tokyo for a Japanese study abroad program that I only enrolled in so that my languag…

Beyond volunteering to help with COVID-19 relief, medical students must also advocate for a change to our health care system

As if it were a typical Monday afternoon, my anatomy instructor asked my medical school classmates to lean in a little closer. “Do you see the left gastric artery?” He asked, as he zoomed in on a 3D online visualization of a stomach. Instead of leaning…

Beyond volunteering to help with COVID-19 relief, medical students must also advocate for a change to our health care system

As if it were a typical Monday afternoon, my anatomy instructor asked my medical school classmates to lean in a little closer. “Do you see the left gastric artery?” He asked, as he zoomed in on a 3D online visualization of a stomach. Instead of leaning…

7 tips for telehealth during COVID-19

Telehealth has come into focus during the COVID-19 pandemic as physicians face an immediate need to reduce exposure by providing care—or at least triage—remotely when appropriate. Under usual circumstances, telemedicine is comparatively low risk. That …

Use COVID-19 to get your life back

It’s time for some good news and hope about life during and after COVID-19. You may be frantically racing from room to room in your house, and from role to role to keep everything together during this unprecedented time. You’re a doctor, pa…

Blowing the whistle on health care fraud: the rewards and protections of doing the right thing

Fraud in the health care industry is a fact of life.  In 2016 alone, the federal government estimated that improper payments by Medicare and Medicaid totaled about $95 billion.  And that’s only a single year’s amount for just two of the government’s ma…

COVID-19: Why are blacks in America are more likely to die?

“We are all in this crisis together, but we are not all experiencing this crisis in the same way.” That was how Chicago mayor, Lori Lightfoot described the jarring data from Chicago’s public health agency that showed black residents a…

Love in the time of COVID-19

COVID-19 changes everything — even, or especially, love. It demands that we love differently and in new ways. For me, this is what #loveinthetimeofcovid19 looks like. My husband, Lunan, and I are both doctors. Lunan, a urologist, is completing his fina…

When COVID-19 becomes blinding to other conditions

The coronavirus pandemic has incited the necessary fear amongst the public and health care workers. This fear is a positive driver of social distancing and other precautionary measures that assist in protecting health care workers and patients. However…