Category: Infectious disease

I’m a doctor in a family of COVID deniers 

I am the only physician in a family of farmers. As I witness the pandemic’s devastating health consequences from the frontlines, I feel a fundamental responsibility to share my experience and advice with my loved ones to keep them safe. However, I find…

Dr. Li Wenliang is my hero

On December 30, 2019, Li Wenliang sent a message to a group of fellow doctors warning them about a possible outbreak of an illness that resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, where he worked. Meant to be a p…

It took a pandemic to reveal the secret health care workers

It took a pandemic to reveal the “secret.” It took a pandemic to realize the importance of health care workers. Ironic, isn’t it? It took a pandemic to know what doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, laboratory technicians, and environmental service…

This isn’t the time for bombastic tributes to health care workers

The Blue Angels have awed generations with tight aerial choreography and the sonic roar that heralds their aerobatics. No doubt millions have felt patriotic goosebumps watching their technical mastery at summer air shows. Last week, as the fighter jets…

Health care workers should not be targets

It has been a week since terrorists broke into the maternity ward in Dashte Barchi, Afghanistan and killed 24, including women, newborns, and a midwife, and injured 16. One woman who had tried for seven years to get pregnant watched as her newborn was …

Ensuring equity of a COVID-19 vaccine

Recently, the White House unveiled its ambitious plan to develop a coronavirus vaccine before year’s end. While many immediately questioned the feasibility of this timeline, we worry that not enough attention has gone to a different but equally importa…

Reflecting on Elmhurst Hospital: past, present, and future

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…

COVID-19 is not a Chinese virus, nor an Asian virus. It is a human virus.

“Chinese virus.” The term shocked me the first time I heard it, and since then, racial slurs and hate crimes against Asian Americans have broken out across the country. Dr. Clara Lee, a pediatrician in New Jersey, recalls, “At the grocery store, I got …

A pediatric hematologist explains multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children

The recent pandemic has confined people all over the world to the indoors to try to keep the virus from spreading. Older adults have been the most commonly affected age group with the virus, but more recently, a strange presentation of COVID-19 has bee…

I’m ready for the change COVID-19 will bring

I am a graduating fourth-year medical student and new internal medicine resident — one of many newly minted physicians that will be thrown into the frontline to take care of COVID-19 patients in a little over a month. It’s a strange time to be gr…