Category: COVID-19 / coronavirus

The problem with allowing COVID-positive health care workers to continue working

On November 9th, the governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, decided to allow hospital workers with COVID-19 to continue to come to work. He required that they be asymptomatic and that they only work on COVID-19 wards with COVID-19 patients. Given at-ca…

Why the pandemic is the perfect opportunity to introduce meditation to children [PODCAST]

“While there is a myriad of expert opinions on what long term effects this pandemic will have on our children and their physical and mental health, we must also remember the age-old idiom: this too shall pass. We must also be sensitive to not add…

We are making sacrifices for you. Please make a sacrifice for us.

I rarely post more than pictures on Facebook. In fact, I rarely use Facebook for much of anything anymore. But I need you all to just listen for a second. I’m scared. For you and for me. I need you all to take a minute and think of the last time …

How to find joy in prison 

This question resonates in my mind each day I pass through the prison gatehouse.  The gatehouse is a physical barrier and a mental one, separating the outside from the inside, seceding the lives of people who guard and care for inmates from the lives o…

Reimagining medical education from within a pandemic

The Prussian pathologist, Rudolf Virchow, who gave us Virchow’s triad: hypercoagulability, endothelial injury, blood flow stasis also gave us the foundations of social medicine, claiming that “physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor” and shoul…

COVID-related stressors and increasing instances of substance abuse [PODCAST]

“While the rise in substance use disorders during COVID will become more apparent as the pandemic eventually ebbs, the silver lining is that this is not a novel problem. We understand substance use disorders far better than we understand COVID-19…

In honor of Benjamin Franklin: Choose prevention

When I was a high school student, my calculus teacher stood eager to use her new electronic board.  She admitted to doing derivatives for fun on the weekends. I admired the way she looked at a complex math problem and solved it with ease. Even more not…

A tale of two epidemics: COVID and obesity

Millions worldwide have had COVID-19. The largest obstacle to reining in this virus’s spread is that the range of symptoms is unpredictable, from minimal to severe respiratory compromise with diffuse lung damage and death. As COVID-19 initially m…

Positive growth from the COVID-19 pandemic 

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost everyone, whether directly, through the loss of loved ones, or its impact on job security. Business has slowed down in many sectors and has been put into a standstill. It became clear that things we thought wer…

Will women in medicine survive COVID-19?

How are two-career households with children — let alone single-parent households — going to manage with daycare centers and schools closed, perhaps for a long time to come? What damage will this do to career progression and earning potential if one par…