We swore an oath: “Primum non nocere” — First, do no harm. When pandemic stress began to bear down on our hospitals, we scrambled to manage the burden of volume and simultaneously mitigate the threat of contagion. In our war effort…
Category: Infectious disease
A perspective on herd immunity for COVID-19
On February 18, Dr. Marty Makary published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal which struck an unusually optimistic note as to the stage of the American COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Makary predicts that based on the current trajectory, COVID-19 will…
Captions on the COVID vaccine selfie matter as much as the picture [PODCAST]
“For a vaccination campaign to be highly effective, we need to be open to having difficult conversations with people who disagree with our perspective. If we don’t, the result will be a polarization of philosophical ideas and not an unbiased and …
The COVID vaccine: Why give two if one will do?
The great COVID vaccine rollout of 2021 is fully underway. Armed with two highly effective products from Pfizer and Moderna, our nation is rapidly advancing toward the immunization of all Americans in hopes of stemming the pandemic. We just can’t get t…
A physician questions the COVID vaccine data from Israel
Bloodletting may be the best-known example of a once widely used, faulty medical treatment, but there are many more. Hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women, famously touted by experts, turned out to be complicated and sometimes harmful. T…
It’s infuriating to encounter discarded gloves and masks in public
Sitting at my “work-from-home” quarantine desk, I heard my alarm – time to change the laundry. Donning a mask, I walked down the hallway and opened the laundry room door. I couldn’t help but fixate on the lone, inside-out, blue glove that s…
Hope: One of the strongest “medicines” we have to treat both our patients and ourselves
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD. By any measure, the past year has been difficult for everyone. The ongoing pandemic with its widespread personal, social, and economic disruptions, as well as civil and politic…
The impact of COVID-19 on those with disabilities and mental illness
As early as April 6, 2020, the New York Times (NYT) published an article revealing early pandemic statistics that showed the death rate for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) who received residential services in New York State…
The COVID-19 vaccine from the South African frontlines
I have been distracting myself since the second wave. Our hospital has quietened down as far as COVID-19 cases go, and we started doing limited planned surgeries. After my last post, which detailed the overwhelming and horrific difficulties we faced du…
We need to work together to help schools reopen [PODCAST]
“Children cannot afford to wait, especially our youngest learners who have difficulty engaging on a screen. We need to all work together to help schools reopen, especially in low-income communities that are disproportionately suffering and may l…
