Category: COVID-19 / coronavirus

Rural psychiatric care in the time of COVID-19

In writing this, I feel a bit strange to contribute my thoughts on a pandemic I’ve had mostly a peripheral experience with dealing first hand. In my brief month on the medicine ward, I did interact with a patient who then was tested positive for SARS-C…

In the Zoom era, an unprecedented view into the lives of our colleagues and children’s classmates

Whatever method you have been using for video conferences these days, we have had an unprecedented look into the lives of our colleagues, children’s schoolmates, teachers, professors, and even famous folks. While this pandemic has allowed the opportuni…

COVID-19 from the New York City frontlines [PODCAST]

“As a physician anesthesiologist who has previously been on assignment for Doctors Without Borders in a resource-depleted region fraught with conflict, I’d like to say there’s little I haven’t seen. But now, after four weeks of staffing COVID int…

Why remdesivir may not be a wonder drug

Gilead’s $1,000-a-pill antiviral remdesivir is no wonder drug. We knew this when it failed for hepatitis, the disease it was created for. And then when it failed for Ebola. And then again, when it failed for COVID-19. But like a bolt, in late Apr…

These are the doctors under the PPE

They are physicians, mentors, partners, mothers, sisters, friends, colleagues – but most evidently, at the moment, they are heroes. I (virtually) sat down with five women physicians, at all points in their medical careers, who are working in seve…

What’s worse than a doctor getting cancer behind prison walls? Try COVID.

He could hear the football game playing on a radio outside his room, so he knew someone was there, and he knew he was dying.  He screamed and screamed as the paralysis from what he was sure was sepsis took over more and more of his body. No one answere…

I will be a cardiologist with a subspecialty in resilience

I am writing this as I lay in bed, feverish, sweaty, and persistent dry cough. I have been sick with presumed COVID-19 for the past ten days. I have quarantined myself from my wife and two sons, unable to hug or reassure them that everything will be ok…

With voices unified, medical students are heard

When a coalition of medical organizations, led by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), petitioned in 2001 to cap medical resident work hours, they were turned down by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Despite their r…

How to mitigate risk and foster resilience among vulnerable populations during COVID-19

Over the past two months, health professionals and community advocates have brought to the fore of national attention what has been the lived experience of many within black and brown communities for ages — racism kills. The substrate of structural rac…

How to ride the wave of adoration for health care professionals

Health care is enjoying an abundance of positive attention as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. My question, my challenge, is how can we sustain this love-fest between the public and the health care profession even after we obtain a vaccine or an e…