As I sit here writing this, one of my friends and colleagues is on a ventilator. He’s fighting for his life. He’s a very healthy guy who runs marathons; we even did some race training together a couple of years back. And now, he’s in critical condition…
It seems that many physicians finally realize that they are expendable. The fact that U.S. health care institutions view doctors (and every other employee) as disposable cogs in a machine is not a new phenomenon. I learned this lesson over a year ago a…
Our 23 bed ICU has been converted to COVID-19 patients. All of them. I want to tell myself this is science fiction, but it’s not. It’s real. And we are scared. As I enter the unit to start my night shift, we have a huddle of the off-going and oncoming …
Tonight will be my first night shift in the medical ICU (MICU) since COVID began ravaging New York City. I was on the hospital floors as an internal medicine resident during the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, my clinic block was can…
I am an ER doctor, and my husband is a pediatrician. This story starts two weeks ago when COVID-19 was first changing all our lives. I am a travel doctor and was returning home. I saw a few patients that I was sure had COVID-19 (later confirmed). Fortu…
I grew up with one guiding principle. One religion. One stone temple that I bowed to faithfully. I kneeled at the glorious shrine of medicine. It was the only thing I ever wanted to do with my life. My education was vigorous. I stayed at home and …
During times of stress, true colors show. The United States is a global leader and literally a dream for millions around the world. During the pandemic pandemonium, we should want to be proud to be American. What does that mean right now, though? After…
I was quite young, but I could sense the unease in my mother when she first sent me off to elementary school amidst an uncertain risk of paralytic polio in the 1950’s era. She maintained her frightened countenance until 1960 when the Sabin vaccine mira…
I was quite young, but I could sense the unease in my mother when she first sent me off to elementary school amidst an uncertain risk of paralytic polio in the 1950’s era. She maintained her frightened countenance until 1960 when the Sabin vaccine mira…
I have been reading, thinking and consulting for a while about the occupational health syndrome commonly referred to as burnout. As initially defined back in the 1970s, burnout is a state of mental and physical exhaustion caused by one’s professi…
