Category: Infectious disease

How the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for class consciousness among physicians

What labor struggles do a grocery worker, custodian, and doctor in the United States have in common? A few months ago, many people’s answers may have been – not much. But ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, our shared challenges are becoming ever mor…

How coronavirus took my grandfather’s life

As a first-year internal medicine resident in NYC, the physical and emotional toll this has placed on me is unmeasurable. My attending physician reminds me of someone commanding a battlefield: my “allied” residents, doctors that chose different special…

In the aftermath of COVID-19, plaintiff attorneys will have a field day

Before COVID-19, the health care system was plagued by another epidemic: malpractice lawsuits.  Much is expected of doctors, and disappointments have consequences. Lawsuits are too often a consequence. Under normal conditions, there are 46,000 malpract…

What John Snow and cholera tell us about the COVID pandemic

It’s hard to imagine that someone could die from diarrhea. If you live in America today, you’ve likely never heard of anyone with cholera, and certainly never of anyone dying from diarrhea. Yet, in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was fairly co…

Connecting through PPE: patient communication during COVID-19

Communication is the cornerstone of patient care. Patients trust healthcare workers with whom they connect. In the current era of COVID-19, connecting with patients and their families is both critical and yet more difficult than ever before. We draw fr…

Are physicians martyrs or models?

This concept comes up in Glennon Doyle’s new #1 best-selling book, Untamed. In this memoir, she looks at her unhappy marriage through the eyes of her daughter. She has been staying in the marriage for her children, believing that getting a divorce woul…

Celebrate health care workers by not suing them

In New York City, each evening at 7 p.m., the sound of people banging on pots and pans can be heard from apartment buildings within an earshot of hospitals all over the city. The cacophonous clanging is a salute to the beleaguered health care workers w…

Take a moment to pause and step outside of yourself

When I was a child, I used to sometimes close my eyes and try to convince myself that I was someplace else. I would lie on the carpet of our living room, block out the sights and sounds and smells around me, and imagine that I was lying on the floor of…

Medical care is being rationed, but not be in the way you think

As the pandemic loomed, there was widespread concern about running out of crucial medical resources, such as mechanical ventilators. We watched as the crisis escalated in Italy and elsewhere, where hospitals seemed overwhelmed. We prepared for the surg…

Enduring the pandemic: How to support your friend on the frontlines

Troubled by the volume of patients dying before they could even be taken out of ambulances, a New York emergency physician recently ended her own life. Are we all just vital statistics, waiting to be calculated? COVID-19 has infected and killed more th…