Category: COVID

This doctor got COVID. Here’s what it taught him.

Tuesday night, March 29 into March 30, I started to feel that sensation I associate with the start of a cold. It was a feeling in the back of my throat that’s almost hard to describe. I haven’t had that sensation in years. Because I have been wearing a…

Done with COVID? Not so fast.

Moving into the pandemic’s third year, as many settle into the notorious “new normal” of COVID, the challenge now is avoiding complacency and keeping attention and vaccination rates high enough to maintain protection against the still…

Pfizer and Moderna must share vaccine technology [PODCAST]

“Pfizer has a particular onus to help intervene globally as one of the largest and most profitable pharmaceutical companies in the world. With its immense capital power, Pfizer should shift some of their spending from national ads promoting their…

Looking across the glass door: a COVID-19 vigil

A small piece of lint is tickling my nose as I am desperately trying not to sneeze into the tight-fitting mask on my face. I know that I will not be able to adjust the mask as my gloves are sterile, and I am standing suspended over a patient’s bo…

We are the voice of reason, the scientific experts, and the advocates for our patients

These last two years have been extremely challenging for most health care professionals. Watching society challenge essential health and science principles that we have known to be fact has been difficult to bear. Being villainized, health care workers…

We’re losing the war. No, not that one.

In the coming months, no one can predict with certainty what will happen with the war in Ukraine. But there’s one thing we do know for sure. The United States will soon reach an unthinkable milestone: One million Americans will have died of COVID…

Am I a doctor or a contingency plan? [PODCAST]

“I suspect that some of the nearly 20 percent of physicians who have quit their jobs during this pandemic needed to feel this relief, too. They needed to feel the relief of having no plan. No ‘if this, then that.’ They needed to just …

Before taking Paxlovid, consider these drug interactions

FDA and Health Canada recently approved Paxlovid as an oral treatment option for mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk of progression to severe COVID-19. It is a combination drug containing nirmatrelvir/ritonavir. Nirmatrelvir works by binding…

Can patients just say no to treatment? [PODCAST]

“Deeming individuals ‘non-decisional’ for misinformed beliefs that are not representative of a psychiatric illness is inappropriate, unfairly medicalizes the narrative and incurs a risk of further public distrust of the health care sy…

To treat future COVID variants, we need more than vaccines [PODCAST]

“With government and industry working hand in hand, we can develop and stockpile monoclonal antibody therapeutics in anticipation of variants to come. We need to be thinking several moves ahead to keep ahead of variants so that stockpiles of ther…