“Good fences make good neighbors” is a memorable and salient line from Robert Frost’s poem, “Mending Walls.” While the context of its meaning is a plea for the importance of privacy, it is a useful phrase for the COVID-19 …
Category: Infectious disease
The bittersweet post-COVID life for this physician
This week, I opened my planner and came across a list of my goals for Spring that I’d written back in early January: attend a Latin dance festival; get my blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu; travel. These sorts of activities open my mind, allowing me to …
When an army has insufficient personal protective equipment, they don’t go in the line of fire
The work of health care workers is not luxurious in the best of times. It is always risky and physically and mentally demanding. In a pandemic, it is outright dangerous. Our front liners during COVID-19 will suffer unimaginable physical and mental harm…
Does joy in work matter during a pandemic?
At a time when health care professionals across the globe are working around the clock against COVID-19, it may seem tone-deaf at best to think about joy in work. We all agree that the top priority for health care leaders now is to focus on expanding t…
The immense kindness and humanity surfacing from the pandemic
It’s been a whirlwind of emotions during the last few weeks. I started in the hospital when our cases were starting to creep up. The fear. The anguish. The uncertainty. The anger. The sadness. The crazy dreams. The donning. The doffing. The decontamina…
The hidden ventilators in America
Your town has more than enough ventilators if you know where to find them. Tens to hundreds of vents are sitting in almost every neighborhood in America, but are being utilized incorrectly. Throughout the nation, there are facilities known as LTACs, w…
Is asking for hazard pay “not becoming of a compassionate and caring physician”?
New York University residents are seeking compensation for the increased risk they face as they are called to the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, but leadership has declined their request for hazard pay and now stands accused on social media of ga…
A neurologist is redeployed and is a better physician for it
In neurology, we all crave to “localize the lesion,” taking pride in our well-refined and meticulous physical examination skills – an aspect of my identity that was temporarily stolen from me in the era of COVID-19. As I walked into the hospital that d…
How do you grieve when you are still mourning?
Moving so quickly. Round and round. Head turning, trying to keep track. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 … faster and faster Losing count. My head spins. A doctor, Indian, like me. A friend, my age. A mother, could be my own. No time to grieve. I kept a list of your name…
The duality of being a physician-mom in the age of COVID-19
Mid-March. New York City. I can recall the moment when the otherwise ordinary sound of a patient coughing in an exam room unexpectedly became emblematic of my own risk of mortality and the emerging risk I might pose to my kids. As the COVID-19 pandemic…
