His breathing was rapid and shallow; O2 in place, his eyes stared at the ceiling of the hospital room. He was a soldier in his late 20s, his once strong body now emaciated, a shell of its former self. His arms rested on top of the bedsheet, bluish nodu…
The World Health Organization (WHO) says there is currently “no evidence” showing that people who have recovered from the coronavirus are not at risk of becoming infected again. “Some governments have suggested that the detection of a…
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, medical education is receiving unprecedented attention. By and large, the focus has been on the immediate problem of what to do with medical students. The answer has hinged on medical students being designated as “non-essent…
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, medical education is receiving unprecedented attention. By and large, the focus has been on the immediate problem of what to do with medical students. The answer has hinged on medical students being designated as “non-essent…
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD. If nothing else, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought crystal clarity to something that all physicians are aware of but don’t often think about – that because we deal clo…
In a previous article, I have described the physician burnout epidemic as a raging river whose features included safety nets designed to catch people before “going over the falls,” the need to teach individual survival skills (e.g., resilience), evalua…
Before becoming a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA), I was a surgical intensive care unit (SICU) nurse for decades. During that time, I often saw patients during their greatest time of need – trauma victims, transplant recipients, patients …
Last weekend, my partner witnessed some of the pandemic’s collateral damage in an upsurge of violent deaths via car wrecks and shootings. A patient of mine, chief of the local SWAT team, had predicted as much: he gave people two weeks at home before th…
I was in medical school when the world saw the news of the Zika and Ebola viruses, but never have I seen mass hysteria to this level for COVID-19. No longer is coronavirus what is depicted in a copy of First Aid for the USMLE Step 1, where it says coro…
We are living in unprecedented times that will be pivotal for our beloved profession. In the Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Cities, the period of time in which the story was set was pivotal in the evolution of society and politics. Our current times ma…
