Category: Infectious disease

COVID-19: Test medical students, accelerate the Match, and let us graduate early to join the fight

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) makes its way across the country and globe, I have been thinking about how we fourth-year medical students fit into the picture.  Not quite out one door, yet not quite in the other, our liminal perspective is liable …

A plea from an emergency physician on the front lines

Our lives are quickly changing. Schools are closing; sports are being canceled; people are working from home, Disneyland is closing, toilet paper is in short supply. We are about to hit a real struggle with our health care system. We are about to hit a…

Prevent the spread of COVID-19 with telemdicine

I am a board-certified internal medicine physician practicing in a small outpatient clinic with a highly reputable academic organization in the greater Boston area.  Regarding COVID-19, I am not panicked, but I am concerned– concerned for our pat…

Prevent the spread of COVID-19 with telemdicine

I am a board-certified internal medicine physician practicing in a small outpatient clinic with a highly reputable academic organization in the greater Boston area.  Regarding COVID-19, I am not panicked, but I am concerned– concerned for our pat…

An ER physician’s advice to the general public: How to flatten the curve

Some advice as an emergency physician, daughter, mother, and concerned citizen. Help keep older relatives and neighbors self-quarantined at home. Same goes for those of any age who are immune-compromised (cancer-patients, on immune-suppressant meds for…

COVID-19 coronavirus needs apolitical truth-telling

She is 11, a fifth-grader, as prepubescent as nature allows, and utterly terrified. She hasn’t eaten normally for nearly a month, her mother reports.  She sleeps poorly, reports nightmares, and cleans her hands so obsessively that she is literally blee…

The accuracy of COVID-19 tests

The current COVID-19 epidemic has highlighted the availability and the results of medical diagnostic tests.  As a physician, I treat the results of lab tests like I treat movie recommendations from a friend – I am always skeptical.  For the movies, I n…

Essential clinician commentary on COVID-19 coronavirus from the KevinMD community

Trusted clinician commentary on COVID-19 coronavirus from the KevinMD community. Continuously updated. The idiot’s guide to coronavirus from an emergency physician COVID-19: Why I’m very concerned I’m an infectious disease doctor and I’m in quarantine …

A previously healthy clinician, now critically ill with COVID-19

A New Jersey physician assistant who was the state’s first COVID-19 patient is speaking out from his hospital bed, calling his illness “severe” and raising concerns about his treatment. James Cai, a 32-year-old non-smoker with no othe…

I’m an infectious disease doctor and I’m in quarantine

Last week, I saw a patient who may have contracted COVID-19. The patient had come into the emergency department overnight due to respiratory distress and overseas travel history. While his clinical picture and history were cause for concern, due to lim…