As a parent who also happens to be a hospital-based pediatrician, lots of people have asked me my opinion on back to school and/or daycare. I am sharing my thoughts. I’m only one person. These are just my thoughts. Feel free to take what is helpf…
Category: Infectious disease
The danger persists. The contagion has won.
A subtle vibration permeates the still air, a thumping that melds with our heartbeat. The drumbeat becomes constant, louder, deafening, echoing the chaos around us. The sounds initially emanate from a far-off land. There is news of a contagion. There a…
Who needs scientists? It’s not like we listen to them anyway.
But seriously, who needs scientists? It’s not like we listen to researchers or pay attention to the warnings. The world is burning up with record ground-breaking temperatures. These so-called scientists predicted these warnings decades ago, with great …
We are all out of ideas for how to convince you to get vaccinated
We in Southern Oregon saw how the pandemic raged in other areas of the country. We were waiting. It would hit here, eventually, we knew it. It came to our city slowly, and then we had a spike. Still, it was much milder than many other places, and we we…
Surviving the first 100 yards: How do you do it? Why do you do it?
You are 19 years old, standing in the mud and mire that are the trenches of World War I. You are cold, hungry, filthy, emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted. You stare straight ahead, eyes vacant, not revealing deep inside you a visceral fear…
The Delta variant Is a monster and our last weapon is the unvaccinated
Oh, how the tide has turned. Three months ago, COVID was ravaging my homeland, India. The Delta variant was burning through the country like an uncontrolled wildfire. People carted dying relatives town to town, desperately seeking hospital beds or a wh…
Pregnancy and the COVID vaccine: What expecting mothers should know
“Is it safe for a pregnant woman to receive the COVID-19 vaccine?” This is the biggest question being asked of OB/GYNs right now. The short answer is “yes.” The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal and Fetal …
I am not asking you to do anything my family and I haven’t done
When I started my career 15 years ago, I naively said I would like a job where there aren’t a lot of politics. Little did I know that my job and profession would be so strongly affected by national politics a decade and a half later. I study human beh…
Is it ethical to force unvaccinated patients to use telehealth only?
COVID-19 has raised many ethical challenges for health care providers, including the level of risk they must take when providing patient care. Early in the pandemic, the ability to mitigate these risks was relatively limited, especially when caring for…
Parenting my parents during COVID: Navigating from a distance
My day started out great; my dad called to let me know he had received the first dose of the vaccine. I let out a whoop of joy! One cannot imagine the sense of relief that passed over me. As a physician and an advocate for the vaccine, it has been a st…
