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…
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…
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 …
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…
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…
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…
