It’s 4:30 a.m. as I trudge to the parking garage with a sense of defeat. I am an internal medicine resident wrapping up a swing shift, the magnanimous buffer to admission responsibilities between the day and overnight ward teams. Though clinically tuck…
Seven years ago, I took a hot yoga class in a packed studio, an R&B playlist bumping loudly, the woman next to me sporadically singing along with the music. Afterward, she smiled at me and said, “It was nice to practice with you!” I was new to yoga…
Two-paged signouts This was the picture of the unusually higher than normal patient load we have in the wards. The hospital looked grim and eerie. Gone were the days when we would start with morning report and see plastered smiles on colleagues’ faces,…
COVID-19 has upended the medical community. Nowhere more so than in the intensive care unit. Life as an intensivist with two young children and a working spouse is never dull. I liken it to tight-rope walking with a pole for balance. I wake up every mo…
“I stayed up all night, and for what, $10 a consult?” A clearly exhausted and exasperated colleague and friend said to me one morning after his very busy call shift. As a chief resident, one of my roles is to manage the call duty schedule. As such, I f…
As I come to the end of my internal medicine residency, I cannot help but experience a flurry of emotions. I am sure many of you, like myself, are feeling a whole host of sensations: relief at the fact that you have now completed over 23 years of educa…
Imagine there are two individuals who have been admitted to a hospital due to COVID-19, and both desperately need ventilators. One is a 60-year-old with a heart condition, and another is a 63-year-old with chronic kidney disease. Because of resource co…
One of the most memorable milestones in my life was my journey to becoming a doctor. A path that I look upon so fondly as it marks a time that molded much of who I am today. Charles Dickens describes my experience perfectly, “It was the best of times, …
Let me tell you a story about Francisco, a recent patient under my care in one of New York City’s hardest-hit hospitals. Suffering from severe COVID pneumonia, he gasped for air as I tried to exude empathy underneath the cold appearance of my head-to-t…
Elmhurst 2014 I first arrived at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, NY, in the summer of 2014 as a medical student on my surgery rotation. We would take occasional night shifts as part of the trauma team. It was the first time I held a pager. Code yellow mea…
