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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
I struggle for words to describe life in the season of COVID-19. Depending on the day, I need at least a few adjectives: “peculiar,” “fine, all things considered,” “terrifying.” “Joyous” and “anxiou…
I pondered this question as I reminisced over the past few weeks. I grappled with these thoughts almost every moment as I have witnessed the world respond to this pandemic, the novel coronavirus: COVID-19. After my shift ended during my trek from the h…
