The past year has been sad. Sad for the lives lost, sad for the isolation, sad for the hostility that has somehow occurred over measures to protect public health. To those who continue to spin a story that vaccines and masking take away your freedom: I…
I am exhausted. Mentally, emotionally, physically. I fear we are reaching our breaking point. We have run a marathon, hoping that we were nearing the finish line as we saw numbers decline in June, only to be told to lace up our sneakers and start over….
“F—- you! I won’t do what you tell me!” the lyrics blare into my teenage ears, as I lip-synch to the rock band Rage Against the Machine’s song Killing In the Name. It’s 1992, and my Walkman is attached to the waistband of my Seattle Blues. It would tak…
Ask any physician how they are doing today, and you’ll probably hear some version of frustrated, tired, and sad. It’s not the lump-in-your-throat type sadness. It’s that my-mind-and-soul-are-tired sadness. The feeling you have when al…
“Children don’t get as sick with COVID-19” and “only children with comorbidities get very sick from COVID-19” are two statements that have concerned me during the pandemic. They have been used as statements to support loosening COVID-19 prevention mea…
I used to think, “I had COVID. I don’t need a vaccine… not for now at least, and maybe not ever.” November 2020: I was a few hours into my 12-hour shift in the emergency department. I had been treating COVID at every shift for about 1…
I go to the hospital cafeteria to unwind from this night — another unpredictable one with irrational patients that randomly attempt to assault the staff. This time, they missed. Behavioral health. Land of the psychotics and schizophrenics. But an incre…
As a primary care physician on the front line, I have witnessed tremendous disability and death due to COVID. I have grieved with mourning family members and spouses – watching their lives be uprooted due to a preventable infection. I have counseled wo…
In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to uphold its current Communist government. Opposed to the foreign invasion of their country, many rebel groups, collectively known as the Mujahideen, rose up in arms to fight the Soviets. Since it was the …
I’m confused and disillusioned. When we were in the throes of the COVID pandemic at the beginning of this year, the talk revolved around when life-saving vaccines would become available for the general public. Thankfully, beginning during the fir…
