Category: Infectious disease

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 …

How small acts of kindness can inspire others during the pandemic

When the pandemic hit New York, I was lucky to have enough PPE to prepare myself, and my staff, for what was to come. After the 2014 Ebola scare, I stocked up on N95 masks, gowns, gloves, and face shields; I knew that should anything with even the slig…

A Los Angeles response to the pandemic

Introduction We are doctors. We were trained to heal, to bring relief, and on occasion, to guide patients and families through end-of-life challenges. Unfortunately, with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, places such as Italy have had to suffer f…

Capitalizing on what we know from other pandemics, with a little help from Major League Baseball

Before the age of modern understanding and drug development, HIV sparked fear, anxiety, and panic throughout the country. My eighth-grade science teacher was the first to teach me about HIV, a virus that makes so many mistakes in replicating itself tha…

A pediatrician’s tips to help you and your family during the coronavirus pandemic

The coronavirus has certainly served to manifest our shared humanity and vulnerability.  As parents, many of us are facing substantial challenges in providing for our families, as we struggle to help our children with their schoolwork, all the while ho…

The triple aim revised: financial shock, burnout, and imposter syndrome

The pandemic has revised the triple aim framework of health care. The simultaneous triple pursuit of improving the patient experience of care, improving the health of populations, and reducing the per capita cost of health care is currently not possibl…

Going to McDonald’s in the coronavirus era

In the coronavirus era, I go most days to our neighborhood McDonald’s, where I purchase a cup of coffee and take it outside to a patio area where I sit and eat peanut butter crackers which I carry with me. Today as I stood in a short line inside …

How cell phones can help lead us out of the COVID-19 pandemic

As most of America approaches the one-month mark since shelter-in-place orders began, there is increasing talk of “plateauing” and debate of strategies for resuming “normal” life. Unfortunately, we continue to find ourselves without a clear path out of…