Category: Infectious disease

Pandemic challenges for patients with heart disease

It is stressful enough to live with heart disease. Now, with a global pandemic, access to health care providers has shifted from in-office to telemedicine in many instances. There are challenges for patients with heart disease in this context: Patients…

A national patient identifier would make vaccinating the entire U.S. population easier

Developing the COVID-19 vaccine was the first monumental milestone on a long and arduous journey to achieving the entire U.S. population’s vaccination. One of the barriers to achieving this task is the absence of a reliable, scalable way to uniqu…

This physician is overwhelmed. She is not alone. [PODCAST]

“I am overwhelmed right now. I know I am not alone. I hear it in the voices of my friends, family, colleagues, patients. We are all feeling it. I am overwhelmed by this virus. There is so much to learn, so much to teach. Every day the information…

Not all frontline health workers who need priority vaccination are doctors and nurses

Canadians breathed a huge sigh of relief when the federal government approved the first COVID-19 vaccine and saw the first immunizations take place. The end of the pandemic and the prospect of a return to normal, whatever that means, became a real poss…

Grief during the pandemic 

With this third surge and our ICUs at zero capacity in Los Angeles, I spent  New Year’s Eve alone at my apartment, recovering from a wards rotation I had completed the night before. No revelry or celebration for me this year.  For months, this virus ha…

Why this critical care doctor got the COVID-19 vaccine

December is typically busy in the ICU. Flu and respiratory viral pneumonia cases start trickling into the ICU, interspersed with cardiac arrests, strokes, pulmonary emboli, septic shock, and COPD exacerbations. The ICU census starts creeping up. Decemb…

As a busy primary care doctor, here is what I am facing

I’m really so grateful when people take the time to ask this. But when I respond, candidly, that it’s been tough and I’m definitely not doing great, I often hear, “But you haven’t had any patients who have died from COVID, have you? And you got the vac…

The consequences of the coronavirus pandemic are eternal

She was rather calm during her visit.  It was the first time we’d met, and she was establishing primary care with our office and me.  We were both delighted to learn she was from a small Georgia town not too far from where I previously practiced, and w…

Upholding the principles of informed consent in the fight against vaccine hesitancy

Experts have taken to social media to quell misinformation and address common concerns about Pfizer’s messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine, performing an important public service in support of robust vaccine uptake. However, some scientific informatio…

Under the COVID testing tent

As a podiatrist, Dr. M usually focuses on feet. But years of military service and expertise in program implementation and measurement qualified him for another clinical job, setting up a COVID test site. Testing stations were available in the suburbs, …