America greatly stands to benefit from a universal face mask policy that mandates face coverings in public. Understandably, adoption of such a policy raises concerns, including: Universal public masking will come with an exaggerated sense of security, …
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many vulnerabilities in the U.S. health care system. While shortages of safety equipment and ventilators have been widely reported, the shortage of physicians and staff to manage patients in respiratory failure is also…
Spanish Flu. Japanese Encephalitis. Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome. West Nile Virus. Wuhan Virus (and lately, the “Chinese Virus” as many have begun calling the pathogen that causes COVID-19: SARS-CoV-2). What do these names all have in common, yo…
As a health care system, we have united during the COVID-19 public health threat to embrace social distancing and “flatten the curve.” In order to conserve scarce resources and limit viral transmission, we health care providers have canceled elective …
As I write this, we are in dark times. Over 23,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus, and there are half a million diagnosed cases – even with testing far from comprehensive. Most cities are on some sort of lockdown. Most of us have become…
This essay is for my colleagues. When I say “colleagues,” I am referring to all health care workers who are currently working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis or are engaging in patient care at any level. This might be an unconventional essay c…
You always knew they didn’t care about you. The administration, I mean. But you knew that going into it. It’s just four years that you have to endure until you can be respected, until you make the big bucks, until you’re treated like a human being. …
When coronavirus exploded, my family was on vacation in Colorado. We played the news nonstop, and it was frightening. I’m a control freak, a planner, and thus my worries were nonstop. What were other hospitals doing to prepare as compared to my own? Wh…
Everything feels like it’s happening out of a movie, mostly because we’ve all seen it before. Pandemic, Outbreak, even World War Z. It has never felt real, until it became real. It became real when all of my friends from my pediatrics residency in New …
Viruses typically invade our bodies through an opening. Think gastrointestinal flu, COVID-19, AIDS. Our bones, however, are normally protected from any outside exposure, so they should be safe, right? The short answer is yes and no. Of course, knowledg…
