“Government officials, regardless of political affiliation, should seek sound medical advice before communicating with their constituents. Appropriate public health information should be shared so that constituents are not harmed by following mis…
Category: COVID-19 / coronavirus
Research in the midst of a pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists, physicians, and public health epidemiologists have come together, and there has been a surge in research worldwide. Basic science research has been leading the way in developing vaccines and genome sequencing t…
A hospitalist’s COVID reflection
Amidst the height of the COVID pandemic in New York City, I turned to Netflix to find morsels of yesterday, which seemed so distant then. During this time, I discovered Mindy Kaling’s creation, Never Have I Ever. The show tries to tell the story of a p…
Thank a health care worker. Get a flu shot.
I evaluated the patient in one of our designated exam rooms for persons under investigation (PUIs) for COVID-19, fully doffed in personal protective equipment (PPE): an uncomfortable, resonant face shield over my surgical mask, looking like Big Bird in…
A young doctor’s thoughts on our disaster response system, and why we need to change it
That first day of mid-March in the call center that was later to become the headquarters of our student lead COVID-19 hotline, the disorganization and confusion were almost palpable. I remember the other fourth-year student at the time, Eda, trying to …
Medical students are benched during the pandemic [PODCAST]
“There is no single culprit responsible for this shift in medical education. However, two, in particular, should be noted. The first is the culture of defensive medicine, or more bluntly, CYA (cover-your-ass) medicine. This culture has been insid…
Can we separate Donald Trump, the patient, from Donald Trump, the politician?
When the president of the United States contracts a dangerous disease, the story is big news. When the same disease has taken the lives of 200,000 people and the same president has been under fire for grossly mishandling the response, the tale takes on…
Inadequate COVID testing leaves New York City schools vulnerable
New York City has the largest public school system in the country. More than a million students, and tens of thousands of teachers, administrators, and support staff. If you read the papers, the biggest issue is how to organize teaching. The debate is…
New York City’s COVID-19 outbreak from the eyes of a pulmonary and critical care team’s biostatistician
December 15, 2018. My coworker is moving to California. She’s a statistician for a group of pulmonary and critical care physicians at our New York City hospital, and I’m a statistician who’s trying not to do too many things wrong, only three months int…
The actor will see you now: the evolving role of a physician in a pandemic
It wasn’t very long into medical school when I realized that the role of a physician feels just like that—a role. As a former high school thespian, I recall my Step 2 CS exam feeling a lot like a series of auditions—convincing twelve standardized patie…
