Category: COVID-19 / coronavirus

Alfred Hitchcock, COVID-19, and the MacGuffin

The last couple of months in a world with COVID-19 have felt absurd, incomprehensible, like something out of a movie.  Most of us hunker down in our homes and wear masks whenever we’re out.  Those who work in patient care settings try to limit risk, bo…

Family and medicine: a day in the life during the pandemic

Sunlight creeps through the living room blinds. We have taken to sleeping here now on the giant sectional sofa. Most days, there is no reason to set an alarm. The dog stirs, moves from where he was nestled against one child to stretch out alongside ano…

Pandemic Wedding is the haunting image you will never forget

I am a full-time primary care physician and part-time photographer.  When my physician assistant and practice manager asked if she could take last week off to prepare for her daughter’s wedding, naturally, I asked about the plans.  Her daughter, a regi…

It doesn’t matter whether it’s COVID or cancer: We need to unite all to cure the one

Like other physicians, the past few months have left me with a multitude of feelings; helplessness, fear, anger, and uncertainty among them. As an oncologist, I’ll confess, there’s another emotion I’ve been grappling with…frustration.  As of mid-May, t…

It doesn’t matter whether it’s COVID or cancer: We need to unite all to cure the one

Like other physicians, the past few months have left me with a multitude of feelings; helplessness, fear, anger, and uncertainty among them. As an oncologist, I’ll confess, there’s another emotion I’ve been grappling with…frustration.  As of mid-May, t…

Empathy in the age of misinformation

Recently many of my peers in the health care and science professions have found themselves on a new, unexpected frontline in the war against COVID-19: the battle against widespread medical science misinformation on social media.  It is important for us…

How the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for class consciousness among physicians

What labor struggles do a grocery worker, custodian, and doctor in the United States have in common? A few months ago, many people’s answers may have been – not much. But ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, our shared challenges are becoming ever mor…

How coronavirus took my grandfather’s life

As a first-year internal medicine resident in NYC, the physical and emotional toll this has placed on me is unmeasurable. My attending physician reminds me of someone commanding a battlefield: my “allied” residents, doctors that chose different special…

In the aftermath of COVID-19, plaintiff attorneys will have a field day

Before COVID-19, the health care system was plagued by another epidemic: malpractice lawsuits.  Much is expected of doctors, and disappointments have consequences. Lawsuits are too often a consequence. Under normal conditions, there are 46,000 malpract…

What John Snow and cholera tell us about the COVID pandemic

It’s hard to imagine that someone could die from diarrhea. If you live in America today, you’ve likely never heard of anyone with cholera, and certainly never of anyone dying from diarrhea. Yet, in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was fairly co…