Category: Infectious disease

Tips to help you overcome your pandemic bad habits

When the COVID-19 pandemic began in the U.S., and states issued stay-at-home orders, many people vowed to use their time at home positively, learning new skills, virtually volunteering, and getting into shape. Now, more than a year into the pandemic, m…

Stop the spread of vaccine disinformation: a story in pictures

Emily Watters is a physician who explains vaccine disinformation and how it spreads (click to enlarge): Emily Watters is a psychiatrist and can be reached at The Cartoon Shrink. Image credits: Emily Watters
Stop the spread of vaccine disinformation: a …

Telemedicine in Nepal during COVID-19

My phone rings. “Namaskar! My cough is really bothering me. What should I do?” says a middle-aged man. “Namaskar! I am Astha Prasai. I am here to help you. Please bear with me while I ask you your problem in detail,” I answer. Mr. Kafle from Kathmandu …

After COVID, now my soul can rest a little easier

I had been searching for a year. Because of the pandemic, despite the pandemic and to heal from the pandemic. Finally in May this year, I was gifted what seemed to have become an impossible task. I messaged the hospital manager: “The trees have arrived…

A plea for help from the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic [PODCAST]

“This plea for help is on behalf of every hospital worker who has been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic — from the environmental services staff and medical assistants who are often not recognized, to the social workers and chaplains wh…

Let the mourning wear black

What a year of change. A pandemic. Cancer. Death. Loss. Fighting. Abandonment. Pain. Becoming an orphan. Becoming a caregiver. My family was hit with a sledgehammer and crushed into pieces. My joyful plans and decades of hard work wiped away with the i…

COVID in Pakistan: a physician’s story [PODCAST]

“The right choice of words, at the right time, can lift a person out of despair and literally save a person’s life, while an ill-chosen word, or worse, a purposely harsh one, can scar a person. The entire field of narrative medicine is formed aro…

Meet the physician who educates patients with cartoons [PODCAST]

Listen to psychiatrist Emily Watters’ work with the homeless population and how she got her start writing cartoons, educating patients using out-of-the-box communication strategies. Emily Watters is a psychiatrist and can be reached at The Cartoo…

COVID vaccines’ tragic dance [PODCAST]

“As a species, we have been an abject failure in dealing with a worldwide crisis. We politicize things for money, political reasons and some kind of weird power, even when it kills us in the process. We already have a World Health Organization (W…

You need a break from the front lines of health care

The current era of health care delivery has been aptly compared with going to war against an invisible enemy that can attack anywhere, at any time and with novel means. This invisible enemy was attacking the civilians as well as the “front line&#…