As the pandemic grew in Southern California, intubating COVID patients became increasingly dangerous. Initially, any patient with signs of respiratory distress was intubated, then sent to the ICU immediately. My physician colleagues and I all thought w…
I am guessing you have felt it. Maybe you have participated or contributed to it. Exuberant hope Unmasked optimism Guiltless travel After a year of living in fear and isolation, bound and gagged, there is a loosening of the bonds. We struggle and wrigg…
The current COVID-19 vaccines have been developed with unprecedented efficiency and speed. Years of research, development, production, and regulatory approvals have been compressed into months. But accelerating the science is only half the puzzle. If w…
Cities across the country, including Chicago and New York, have announced reopening — Broadway will be full capacity soon. This is at the same time as the pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has lifted, walk-in vaccines are available around the …
Cities across the country, including Chicago and New York, have announced reopening — Broadway will be full capacity soon. This is at the same time as the pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has lifted, walk-in vaccines are available around the …
How do people respond to a gift, especially if it is lifesaving? Pretty much as they would many millennia ago. Over the past five months, while helping inoculate about 100,000 people at one of Tucson, Arizona’s COVID vaccination centers, I was constant…
It feels like the days when I could go to all-you-can-eat buffets, when I could actually catch a smile from a patient and when I could hug someone after a successful chemotherapy round were written in history books long ago. In some ways, I have spent …
“As if COVID-19 weren’t bad enough during the pandemic, another public health crisis – substance use disorder (SUD) – has gone from bad to worse, while access to behavioral health services is shrinking. As of September, more than half (52%) of co…
When I was in college three decades ago, someone close to me was diagnosed with HIV. He was in his early 20s. The only drug available was the controversial AZT, an expensive drug originally designed to treat cancer. I thought my friend would die. Since…
As an epidemiologist and former public health official, I’ve noticed a lot of coverage in the news about COVID vaccine hesitancy issues in BIPOC communities, and I, like many other clinicians, am working hard to address those issues. But there is one…
