Category: COVID

Monkeypox and the prolonged COVID pandemic could seal the fate of the health care system

I understand it’s been over two years since the World Health Organization announced the coronavirus pandemic, and we are tired. I speak for the thousands of health care workers and frontline workers: We are exhausted, we feel taken for granted, a…

Novavax may be able to provide equitable access to another vaccine alternative

On June 7th, 2022, the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine was approved for use in adults by the Vaccine Advisory Committee of the United States Food and Drug Administration. The vaccine has already been authorized in many other nations, including Indonesia, the …

Get ready for a COVID culture shock

A friend called me for medical advice two weeks ago. He’s single, in his 30s and generally healthy, but he’d developed a dry cough with mild congestion. After a self-administered COVID-19 test turned up negative results, he remained suspici…

My experience as a teenage health care worker during the COVID-19 pandemic [PODCAST]

“We owe it to our patients to do better. Every time I picture the couple leaving the pharmacy unvaccinated, I am reminded that true health care requires accountability and a willingness to challenge the status quo. That means challenging a “no” o…

Chronicles of my COVID isolation 

Day 1. I spent Thursday, my day off, golfing. Friday, I was scheduled to see patients and do surgery on the non-English-speaking mother of a patient I delivered a long time ago (who I didn’t really remember). She remembered me, though, and brough…

How to help rewrite the COVID-19 information playbook

Facts combat fear It’s hard to believe the first COVID-19 vaccine was administered in the U.S. only a year and a half ago. Like many others, I welcomed the COVID-19 vaccine as a triumph of global cooperation that leveraged decades of research and…

Distrust in science is a cancer to public safety

When a congressional candidate was recently cheered on after demanding the execution of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, it was another reminder that civil discourse and trust in science are continuing to dwindle. A controversial household name in the sciences, D…

Doctors as organizational stewards

COVID-19 melted down the world at a very inopportune time in history. Just as medicine was getting a handle on previously intractable conditions, from sophisticated diabetes management to less invasive surgical procedures, a new threat that devastates …

Combatting antimicrobial resistance during COVID: What clinicians need to know

While the world has spent the last two years laser-focused on the COVID pandemic, another public health threat is still lurking in the shadows: the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been recognized since the earl…

Health care communications during the pandemic era [PODCAST]

“At the interpersonal level, people can help to normalize vaccination as the standard among their friends and family–not by lecturing or hectoring, simply by openly sharing that they themselves are vaccinated. Health care providers also have a ro…