“I am grateful that I work in a small rural hospital that is like a family. I am grateful that my organization has done everything in its power to protect us… but I hope we can do better. I hope medical workers have enough left within them to giv…
Category: COVID-19 / coronavirus
Reflections on a year of COVID
One year ago, on March 14, I worked my first of many COVID shifts as a hospitalist at a large academic teaching institution in Chicago. In the beginning, I think most of us on the front lines felt a strange combination of duty, fear, and exhilaration….
One year into the COVID-19 pandemic
“Come to triage right now, and wear your N95. A patient going straight to OR and she’s having fever and chills.” I was summoned to the triage area of labor and delivery for a patient brought in from the ultrasound clinic and found to have absent fetal …
Where does science end and where do politics begin?
In the past 12 months, as the coronavirus swept from coast to coast and back again, scientific knowledge and inquiry have been thrust to the forefront of American political consciousness. With science’s newfound centrality to our public life has come i…
A physician deals with uncertainty during the pandemic [PODCAST]
“Despite forces not within our control, namely the thoughts and actions of others, headway has been made in my local practice area: the decline in mortality, the advances in clinical knowledge about the pathophysiology, more efficient testing, m…
Cartoons that explain how the COVID vaccines work
Emily Waters is a physician who shares how the mRNA COVID vaccines — known as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — work (click to enlarge): The other option, the single-dose vaccine created by Johnson & Johnson, is explained here (click to…
End the draconian hospital visitation policies during COVID-19 [PODCAST]
“At the start of the pandemic when hospitals were overrun, testing and PPE were scarce, and unknowns about COVID-19 transmission abound, such restrictions were reasonable, perhaps even essential. But we have made progress since then; most hospita…
My Shot! A COVID vaccine adaptation
Vax’n 8, a group of physicians from Northern California working in a variety of specialties in medicine, are proud to present “My Shot!”, a song adapted from the hit Broadway show Hamilton. “My Shot” addresses the social, scientific, and political issu…
COVID is a race with no finish
As a devoted runner, I find life lessons from this movement that help me get through difficult times. Journey with me for a moment. We have signed up for a distance running race. For some of us, this is familiar territory. For others who consider payin…
An anniversary: Reflecting on COVID-19 and combustion
One year ago today, my hospital system admitted its first patient with COVID-19. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been twelve months. It simultaneously feels immensely long ago and like it was only yesterday; that what I know of medic…
