We liked science and wanted to help people. “I’ll help people,” we said, “I’ll be a doctor. I’ll do no harm and try my best.” We studied and studied and were terrified on our first months on the wards. Finally,…
Category: Infectious disease
How do we explain the unexplainable? Are there words for the things we’ve experienced?
I’m usually good with words. The last year and a half of being a “front line nurse” has left me struggling to find the words. The frustration, anger, trauma, and sadness have so muddied my mind that I find it hard to sort through all of the complexitie…
Is it a badge of honor to refuse the vaccine but choose to die?
You know that if you don’t get vaccinated and you don’t wear a mask, you potentially will die. You go to super spreader events, big groups at beaches, football games, baseball games … loads of people laughing and clapping, and shoulder to shoulder. You…
The end, through the eyes of a critical care nurse
On the day you die from COVID, many things will happen. A colleague and I will enter the room to carefully prepare and clean your body. We will shut off all the IV pumps. We will turn off the ventilator. We will silence and turn off the monitor that is…
The most patriotic thing you can do right now is get vaccinated
I am so tired of the freedom argument with it comes to vaccines. So tired. It didn’t really hit me until I learned more about medicine, government, and public health, just how much freedom is taken for granted. I get it. I don’t like it whe…
A summary of state of the art COVID treatment
Prevention Our most effective weapons are lockdowns, masks, distancing, ventilation and vaccination, but we can also protect close patient contacts pharmacologically. Subcutaneous REGEN-COV (Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody combo, casirivimab plus imdev…
Clearing the air our kids share: a prescription for healthy schools
As a pulmonary and critical care doctor and the mother of three children too young to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, life has been harrowing. At the beginning of the summer, however, I was beginning to breathe a sigh of relief. My children had been in sch…
COVID-19 divides and conquers
On August 25, 2021, the United States achieved two world records: approximately a total of 39 million cases of COVID-19 among our citizenry and approximately 648,000 deaths due to succumbing to COVID. Young, old; male, female; rich, poor — it doesnR…
A person-to-person strategy is needed in the pandemic war
In June 2020, I wrote a short piece about the COVID vaccine that turned out to be prophetic. I said that the vaccine’s immunity might wane over time, that there might be bothersome side effects immediately, and that the public might ignore social dista…
COVID and Afghanistan: a war on 2 fronts
I’ve faced this disease since it arrived. I flew into the storm in order to face it head-on, leaving behind my family and a hospital filled with denial and petulant resistance to the horror that was to come. While in New York, I worked alongside …
