Drinking the Kool-Aid Across the USA recently, demonstrators wielding, “Stop the madness! It is just a cold virus!” and “Let me work” signs, chanting “Freedom now” and “Fire Fauci,” dangerously demanded a…
Category: Infectious disease
COVID: an impending case of the stripes
Elise loves this book. The protagonist is a girl who, due to a desire to fit in with her friends, denies her love of lima beans. Camilla awakens with stripes on her skin, and no one can explain it. The doctors are called in, then the specialists. The s…
Fact vs. fiction: the battle between life and death in the world of COVID-19
We all love a good conspiracy theory. Did a man really walk on the moon? Who really killed JFK? On and on. The medical conspiracy theories have also been around. The anti-vaccine movement has left many children vulnerable to preventable life-threatenin…
Bearing witness: the physician’s role in a time of crisis
Like many physicians not initially on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic, I watched with growing dread as stories from doctors and nurses started coming out from hot spots first in China then in Italy and then Seattle and New York. Seeing their fa…
A response to unemployment during the COVID pandemic: Medicare for all
One afternoon in clinic, I opened a patient’s chart for a telehealth visit. Within days of the COVID pandemic, all clinic visits had transitioned to telehealth. The young woman had sent a picture through the electronic medical record of a rash on her l…
The unexpected time the COVID-19 pandemic gives physicians
My three-year-old daughter calls it “canolavirus.” To her, it represents the answer to a number of hitherto unprecedented events happening in her life at this time. Her physician mommy working from home for a number of weeks now. The last she remembers…
Humility drives physicians in the face of COVID-19
One of the great responsibilities in doctoring is alleviating suffering. That hasn’t changed. But the novelty of COVID-19 makes us uncertain as we care for our patients. Anxious even. We feel helpless watching people get ravaged with SARS-CoV-2. …
We are not past the risk of COVID-19
If you’re like me and you don’t live in a state that has already started re-opening, you are likely taking a lot of walks. Regardless of where you are in the U.S., I think we can all agree that if you cough or sneeze in any public setting, you automati…
Finding hope in the COVID-19 pandemic
I am a 41-year old physician in the Phoenix metropolitan area. In the course of several unforgettable weeks in March 2020, my life, like every American’s, had been drastically flipped on its head. While I feel fortunate to be able to continue to have e…
Physicians are called to care and service, pandemic or not
“I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to be in, a position to relieve the suffering of others.” — Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler In a time of crisis, epidemic or pandemic, “Who ya gonna call?”: An athlete? A bo…
