The recent pandemic has confined people all over the world to the indoors to try to keep the virus from spreading. Older adults have been the most commonly affected age group with the virus, but more recently, a strange presentation of COVID-19 has bee…
I am a graduating fourth-year medical student and new internal medicine resident — one of many newly minted physicians that will be thrown into the frontline to take care of COVID-19 patients in a little over a month. It’s a strange time to be gr…
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it revealed a troubling paradox in Vermont’s healthscape. Monopoly-creating laws and regulations (like the Affordable Care Act and the Certificate of Need program) have artificially reduced the state’s health facil…
On April 29th Anthony Fauci announced the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an institute he runs, had completed a study of the antiviral remdesivir for COVID-19. The drug reduced time to recovery from 15 to 11 days, he said, a brea…
I pull my car into the garage and exhale wearily. I’ve just finished rounds at the hospital, including PUIs for COVID-19. I’m lucky. I get a new N95 every day, but still, I’ve seen the steady reports of diligent physicians getting infected, so I kno…
April 2020 was to be a month of personal milestones. I would be traveling to Mexico with sixty closest friends and family to marry the woman of my dreams. Twelve days later, I would celebrate my thirtieth birthday. Suffice it to say, I was looking forw…
As I sit through another meeting discussing our facility’s preparedness for COVID-19, my mind circles back to my infant at home. Husband and I are both frontline physicians, fully aware we may need to take on more shifts and responsibilities. Do I have…
In the 1800s, smallpox ravaged the world. Fortunately, a vaccine had been developed that could protect individuals. This vaccine left a scar at the site of injection and identified the individuals as “immune.” As we look towards the future of the COV…
Around three weeks ago, my 72-year-old patient, Mr. J., woke up feeling severely short of breath. He felt unusually tired, noticed a dry cough, and felt achy in his arms and legs. Suspicious of COVID-19, he and his wife called an ambulance and went to …
A call to arms The thought never crossed my mind that as an ophthalmology resident, I would play a direct role in treating patients with this novel virus. The rapidity with which the virus had spread would become a poignant reminder of the lethality of…
