With apologies to the late Yankees slugger Yogi Berra, for pandemic-weary Americans, it’s like “déjà vu all over again,” as new lockdowns and mandatory mask mandates are being imposed across the globe. The latest threat, the Omicron C…
Category: COVID
When a pandemic of inaction by medical boards fails to protect patients
You’d think by now – at the “experienced” age of 40, a practicing OB/GYN almost two years into a pandemic – that I’d know better than to trust broad proclamations from professional organizations and instead resign myself to the …
Clearing the air our kids share: a prescription for healthy schools [PODCAST]
“Six air changes per hour and HEPA grade filtration of indoor air for our children is an investment in their futures for long beyond when the COVID-19 pandemic fades from view. We know there is poor indoor air quality in multiple schools, from in…
Unless we get back to the basics, there will be no end to the pandemic
Frankly, I am tired of this pandemic. I am tired of the death. I am tired of the destruction of families and the obliteration of vulnerable individuals’ social supports. I am tired of human issues being politicized and used as weapons to divide u…
The gender vaccination gap
This year, I lost too many close and extended family members to COVID-19. As a medical student, I was stunned to see a virus take a grasping toll on my life and surroundings. It was frightening, to say the least. Throughout the period of grief, which I…
It is time to make the unvaccinated pay their fair share
Massachusetts is again experiencing a COVID-19 surge and our hospitals are overwhelmed, mostly with unvaccinated patients. As a practicing physician who takes care of many high-risk diabetic patients, I ask all my patients about their COVID-19 vaccinat…
I wish it didn’t require a cancer diagnosis to trust me [PODCAST]
“The medical profession hasn’t changed. Our credibility hasn’t changed. Our commitment to care for you – to adore you, to grieve your diagnosis and what it means for you and your family – hasn’t changed. Our advice hasn’t changed. I’m grateful fo…
The COVID vaccine is a life raft. I’m not your life raft to get out of it.
It began with a seemingly innocuous text from a friend of the family. “Hi, Richard. I hope you’re well. I need to speak with you. Can I call you?” The last time we spoke was at my brother’s long-postponed “celebration of l…
The death of empathy
You used to come to us struggling to breathe and begging for our help, and while we stood over you preparing for intubation, we would feel all the feels while looking into eyes that we knew might never open again. We would break down and cry while tell…
Emotional epidemiology of disease is as critical as clinical epidemiology
At this point in the COVID vaccination campaign, nearly all American adults who want the vaccine have gotten it, and are gratefully snapping up their boosters. Those who decline vaccination are largely impervious to public service announcements, commun…
