Before COVID-19, meal planning and grocery shopping were the most time-consuming tasks of my life as a physician and mother of three young children. Now, meal planning is an indulgence compared to “COVID contingency planning” — the taxing b…
Category: COVID
A nuanced look at the Tuskegee syphilis study [PODCAST]
“The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is widely acknowledged as a violation of ethics today, but the social conditions of the time allowed the grave injustices to happen in plain sight. In the 1930s, social Darwinism emerged as justification for racist pr…
People over profit: Pfizer and Moderna must share vaccine technology
One year ago, the FDA granted emergency use authorization of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S., and nearly 549 million total vaccine doses have been given since. These vaccines have been safe, effective methods in preventing infection and death from C…
Society has unrealistic expectations of physicians
The COVID-19 pandemic helped bring out people’s true colors. After two years of the unrelenting pressures of the pandemic, people’s true colors came out, and I will be frank about this truth. As physicians, we often put our patient’s …
Individualism vs. the common good: It is time for the pendulum to swing back
Health care is now at a crossroads. We’ve been hearing that phrase more often recently, but what does that mean? Being at a crossroads signifies that now is the time to make a decision that will affect the future in substantial and irrevocable wa…
Pandemic behaviors, dog poop, and the social contract [PODCAST]
“It is hard to understand and communicate the uncertainty that comes with evolving science, the changing recommendations as we learn more, the vaccine that didn’t do all that was initially promised. It has become even harder with the erosion of t…
Are hospital CEOs are responding to the realities of health care?
On December 14th, 2021, hospital CEOs met under the guise of The Transformative CEO Healthcare Summit to brainstorm novel ideas in health care and to create “a new world ecosystem.” Themes included how to utilize medical data, how technolog…
A soul that never loses faith
I am so tired. Not in the usual “hard day at work,” but in a “deep-in-my-soul” tired. I am exhausted. I am heading into my third year as system medical director, where I lead a system-wide palliative medicine program in rural he…
The orphans of COVID: Who will care for them now?
The 911 call came too late. Her daughter was 32 years old and usually quite healthy. But she refused the COVID vaccinations. She said she took her vitamins and was healthy and that “God is my pilot” and “I don’t want toxins in my body.” Her mother knew…
I am an ICU nurse. We are drowning. [PODCAST]
“Tears and sweat drown my face as I try to rip off my PPE and exit the room. I didn’t want to leave him, but I couldn’t bear another second in that reality. A whirlwind of emotions crash over me, and my knees weaken. I thought, “If I can just get…
