“Why is my disease less important than COVID?” Donna asked me toward the end of our phone call. Two years ago, after celebrating her 65th birthday, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia—an aggressive type of blood cancer—which turned out to be …
We have all seen the memes and picture frames on social media. I can’t stay home – I am a health care worker. I am a health care worker. But I have been mostly home the past eight weeks, and the thought of returning to the office full-time has le…
Doctors across America are getting strikingly similar messages from their hospital administrators—that we are highly valued, but that they will reduce our salaries due to the pandemic. Whether you are working on the frontline and risking your life (and…
“It is no secret that we started off combating COVID-19 with disadvantages. Lately, news is rampant with coverage of the paucity of ventilators, hospital beds, and N95 masks. But it is important not to forget the deficits in our workforce. Last y…
Since COVID-19, the way that we practice medicine has changed. Every patient we see, test we order, and treatment we prescribe is under closer scrutiny. Direct patient interaction has been cut to the bare minimum. This has proved to be a challenge in m…
COVID-19 has made the inadequacy of our public health and hospital-based health care system to identify, mitigate, and resolve pandemic disaster self-evident. Gaps in hospital-based preparedness capacity are abundant, including the inadequacy of stockp…
“The donation of hydroxychloroquine, in contrast to the accompanying donation of 1,000 ventilators, is unethical as either humanitarian aid or as a ‘research study.’ The United States has a moral responsibility for any human harm that…
The coronavirus has taken a major toll on virtually all aspects of our lives, especially for those of us who live in urban areas. As many others have rightfully pointed out, the dangers of the disease extend well beyond the physical complications cause…
“Out of the blue, a new virus popped up, and ten weeks later, it is a pandemic. Within the last ten weeks, doctors have identified this new disease, figured out how it is transmitted, identified what body fluid we need to test to determine who ha…
Spring 2020 has brought a disproportionate amount of grief for many of us. The losses include mortal ones, such as the death of a loved one, a colleague, or a patient. We’ve lost productivity, opportunities, and income. We’ve also lost freedoms, from t…
