I wish that I didn’t have the experience of working 34 years as a nurse. I know the big picture in a hospital. A recent article stated that the Twin Cities, where I live, has 500 ICU beds, 450 ventilators. As of last Friday, those were 95 percent…
Category: COVID-19 / coronavirus
Coronavirus can be controlled, but we must embrace sacrifice
In the midst of this coronavirus pandemic, a friend of mine relayed a troubling story to me recently. My friend is a dermatologist who is 9-months pregnant, living and working in a county with no known community spread of the novel coronavirus. After s…
I’m grateful my father never lived to see the COVID-19 outbreak
My dad was a baseball enthusiast and a connoisseur of fried calamari and dark chocolate. He had a genius-level IQ and knew the answers to obscure Jeopardy questions. He would beat you at any trivia game. He was an avid reader, typically reading at l…
Frontline clinicians deserve hazard pay
These are interesting times. Our schools are shut down. Transportation halted. Businesses shuttered. Public spaces abandoned. Cities locked down. Stock markets crashing. It is the greatest disruption to life we have faced since 9/11, and this wi…
Innovation in the time of COVID-19
Necessity is the mother of invention, and in no time is invention more necessary than during a global pandemic. Starting with the drive-through testing clinics pioneered overseas that spread to the United States (big shout-out to the University of Was…
My colleagues are nervous. My patients are crying. And yet, we are here.
Do you remember when you were a bright-eyed pre-med student, head bowed at the computer, typing your personal statement? Type, type … backspace, backspace … type. You didn’t want to use the phrase “to help people” in your statement as your reason for w…
Pollution in China and Iran are worsening the coronavirus
The baffling spread of the novel coronavirus has given many scientists and policymakers pause. There may be some important clues in the patterns the disease is leaving that tell us quite a bit about what conditions can hasten its spread and even worsen…
COVID-19 is not a cause for panic. It is cause for action.
As many of my Facebook friends know, I have posted a great many updates about COVID-19, both public health recommendations and news updates, but this is my personal plea. As a physician with a public health degree, looking at the data, looking at what…
Preventing depression in the wake of COVID-19
As I drove back home from the hospital yesterday, I noticed that traffic was lighter. Then tonight, as I walked my dog in the early evening, I cannot help but notice the lack of foot traffic, the relative emptiness of the street. There are others like …
In the midst of a pandemic, this nurse feels betrayed
This nurse notified his hospital unit director testing availability for novel coronavirus on January 26, 2020. This nurse asked his hospital unit director if signs could be posted discouraging visitation unless necessary on March 10, 2020. The respons…
