When I was in college three decades ago, someone close to me was diagnosed with HIV. He was in his early 20s. The only drug available was the controversial AZT, an expensive drug originally designed to treat cancer. I thought my friend would die. Since…
As an epidemiologist and former public health official, I’ve noticed a lot of coverage in the news about COVID vaccine hesitancy issues in BIPOC communities, and I, like many other clinicians, am working hard to address those issues. But there is one…
Kisses, hugs, cuddles, breakfast in bed/beautiful brunch outdoors is how I remember celebrating Mother’s Day with my kids in the past, but 2020 was a bit different. As a physician caring for children with COVID-19, along with being a mother of 2 young …
“When faced with an existential crisis, any organization, as large as a nation or as small as a marriage, will go one of two ways. Either it will bond together, coalesced in a common purpose, or it will collapse in a spasm of blame and shame. Whi…
You would think that the vaccine rollout wouldn’t be so difficult. We had some brilliant scientists who raced against time and developed novel vaccines with technology never used before. Both Pfizer and Moderna used unique mRNA technology. The va…
For over a year, I have watched and witnessed the multitude of ways that COVID has ignited crisis after crisis in our country and across the world. At first, the crisis of the unknown and the ill-prepared – we as health care professionals did not know …
I am a palliative care physician in a hospital in our nation’s capital region. Like most urban hospitals, ours has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. My colleagues and I are exhausted and emotionally devastated. We are not alone. …
The term “mRNA lipid nanoparticle” has become common of late, given the use of Pfizer/BioNTech’s and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines make of nanoparticles to carry mRNA into cells. Once inside a cell, the mRNA instructs the cell to make pieces of the prote…
You have seen those harrowing pictures. Patients dying outside the hospitals while waiting for a bed. People on oxygen masks gasping for air-sharing beds. Dead bodies piling up in morgues. Overstretched crematoriums and burial grounds. COVID has hit…
I feel privileged to have received both of my COVID-19 vaccine doses. Although, despite the COVID-19 pandemic killing over 562,000 Americans, 37% are hesitant about receiving this vaccine themselves. The World Health Organization defines vaccine hesita…
