As an emergency medicine doctor who trained in the Bronx, I decided that I must return to NYC in solidarity. This is the first time I have taken an assignment with my colleagues’ collective burnout as the focus of my intention. Previously I have …
Category: Infectious disease
The impact of COVID on the Hispanic community
There are so many. As health care providers and as a nation, we have been acutely aware of the impact of COVID-19 on communities of color and, more specifically, on the African American community. In April, nearly three-fourths of patients who died fro…
How the pandemic can bring the family-centered model back to pediatrics
The devastation inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic both in terms of health and the world economy will continue to be discussed for quite some time. Large numbers of our neighbors have been impacted in these ways. What has also been just as profound …
How COVID-19 is hurting the most vulnerable mentally ill: observations from the frontline
“My partner doesn’t want me to come back home now that I’ve come to the hospital. He is worried I’ll come back and infect him and his parents. I have nowhere to go”. Fear and guilt were palpable in the young woman sitting before me. She had decided to …
The mental health benefits of sharing stories
“But, surely offer you therapy or mental health services?” I asked an internal medicine resident and friend on the frontlines in New York City. “No, not really. Well, there’s one person for our whole group,” they responded. “And do people feel comforta…
Mike Pence and the Mayo Clinic’s moral failure
One of the essential ethical foundations of medicine is that there is one standard that we apply to everyone. Everyone, regardless of their “VIP” status. Recently, Vice-President Pence visited the Mayo Clinic, and in violation of their stated policy,…
Mike Pence and the Mayo Clinic’s moral failure
One of the essential ethical foundations of medicine is that there is one standard that we apply to everyone. Everyone, regardless of their “VIP” status. Recently, Vice-President Pence visited the Mayo Clinic, and in violation of their stated policy,…
Physicians and the psychological trauma of COVID-19
In April 2020, Dr. Lorna Breen, an emergency medicine physician from New York-Presbyterian Medical Center, came to the University of Virginia Medical Center, not as a physician, but as a patient. She had been working at the height of the COVID-19 epide…
Amid COVID, first do no harm
I am a surgeon, mother, daughter, researcher, and ethicist. These multiple roles dancing together to a more discordant tune amid this unprecedented time. The “daughter” has managed to convince her ageing parents that they really ought to no…
3 coronavirus facts Americans must know before returning to work and school
We can’t un-bungle our nation’s COVID-19 response. Political leaders acted too slowly; health agencies committed unforced errors with testing kits and, amid the confusion, an information fog settled over the land. Americans remain afraid, perplexed, an…
