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…
Category: Infectious disease
Can COVID-19 be tragically beautiful?
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…
Conversations with 3 COVID-19 survivors
The ability to exam patients nowadays is supremely limited due to virtual conferencing platforms being used more and more to see patients in our office. My office is now different. We hear so much about death on social media sites, the news, and in rea…
Why I feel grateful to be a physician today
Doctors today can help more people, and prevent the spread of disease more effectively through communication, than we ever could by seeing patients one-at-a-time in person. I have realized that instant human connection through technology makes us more …
Every time you congregate with someone from outside of your home, you are potentially responsible for deaths
My husband and I have always relished being in the thick of it, “in the trenches,” we would say, at our hospital. He is a head and neck cancer surgeon, and I am a pediatric otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat specialist for children). W…
We need to stop making this public health emergency political
What a bag of mixed emotions these last few months have been in the face of COVID-19. I’ve watched my community doubt the seriousness of COVID as it reached the U.S., been pulled from my clinical rotations and stood in solidarity with other medical stu…
It’s time to honor those who died from COVID-19 by sharing their stories
As of this moment, 40,265 Americans have died. They loved their families and friends. They had hopes and dreams. They were moms and dads, daughters and sons, grandmas, and grandpas. They meant something to somebody. Their deaths are barely acknowledged…
If we return to normal in medicine, have we lost the lesson of the pandemic?
My energy has been bottled up. It’s not just over the past few weeks during this pandemic. My energy has been bottled up and backlogged in some areas of my life for decades. The recent turn of life events has just made it even more glaring and evident…
Hero or victim? My mother, the anesthesiologist.
My mother gave years of her life to service in this hospital. I was born in this hospital. I volunteered here for years before I started my residency in this hospital. I grew up before the very eyes of this hospital. I owe my life to this hospital, but…
Physicians just want respect in the time of COVID-19
After speaking, working, and coaching with hundreds of physician moms, guess what their #1 request at work is. Guess. A pay raise? More vacation time? Adequate maternity leave? Any maternity leave? Hint: Now, for the first time in my many decades as a …
