The devastation inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic both in terms of health and the world economy will continue to be discussed for quite some time. Large numbers of our neighbors have been impacted in these ways. What has also been just as profound …
“My partner doesn’t want me to come back home now that I’ve come to the hospital. He is worried I’ll come back and infect him and his parents. I have nowhere to go”. Fear and guilt were palpable in the young woman sitting before me. She had decided to …
“But, surely offer you therapy or mental health services?” I asked an internal medicine resident and friend on the frontlines in New York City. “No, not really. Well, there’s one person for our whole group,” they responded. “And do people feel comforta…
One of the essential ethical foundations of medicine is that there is one standard that we apply to everyone. Everyone, regardless of their “VIP” status. Recently, Vice-President Pence visited the Mayo Clinic, and in violation of their stated policy,…
One of the essential ethical foundations of medicine is that there is one standard that we apply to everyone. Everyone, regardless of their “VIP” status. Recently, Vice-President Pence visited the Mayo Clinic, and in violation of their stated policy,…
In April 2020, Dr. Lorna Breen, an emergency medicine physician from New York-Presbyterian Medical Center, came to the University of Virginia Medical Center, not as a physician, but as a patient. She had been working at the height of the COVID-19 epide…
I am a surgeon, mother, daughter, researcher, and ethicist. These multiple roles dancing together to a more discordant tune amid this unprecedented time. The “daughter” has managed to convince her ageing parents that they really ought to no…
We can’t un-bungle our nation’s COVID-19 response. Political leaders acted too slowly; health agencies committed unforced errors with testing kits and, amid the confusion, an information fog settled over the land. Americans remain afraid, perplexed, an…
Your alarm may still go off at the same time, but I’ll bet what happens next is not the same as it was back in February. There is no denying our daily lives have been turned upside down in both stressful and heartwarming ways. While recent stories have…
A few weeks ago, while I was still seeing a full schedule of patients and the crisis was just beginning, I asked myself, “How can I reach this little person on the exam table in front of me?” It was our first meeting. He was deaf and partia…
