COVID-19 has turned the world on its head. A major problem we have faced since the beginning is that it had already been spreading like wildfire for a few months since the end of 2019 — before most of the world realized that it was time to take action …
Health care has been hanging by a thread for some time — in our community and across the nation. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses inherent in an underfunded public health system, a monopolized hospital, and a fractured medical supply chain. At …
The coronavirus pandemic posed unprecedented challenges and forced a shift towards an accelerated digital transformation. The COVID-19 public health emergency focused attention on timely dissemination and reporting of research findings, resulting in th…
As if COVID-19 weren’t bad enough during the pandemic, another public health crisis – substance use disorder (SUD) – has gone from bad to worse, while access to behavioral health services is shrinking. As of September, more than half (52%) of community…
“These encounters made my evening shift much more emotional than usual. I am still not sure what it was exactly that evoked such strong feelings of sadness. Was it having a patient who was a health care worker? Was it the rapidity in which all th…
I have never felt so alone. I was lying in bed with severe abdominal pain. Pain I never had before. Well, at least not for a reason. As I lay there, I kept thinking, what if I die while I wait until morning. It was the middle of the night. I had not fe…
After nine months of death, despair, and fear, the one-two victory of Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine approvals is a major turning point for everyone in health care. Social media timelines suddenly sprang to life with vaccine selfies as besieged …
I read somewhere that 30 percent of nurses were reluctant to get the COVID vaccine, but I didn’t think I would know any of that 30 percent. I was at work the other night when I realized that I was wrong. Newly vaccinated, I was talking to some of my nu…
“In the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic, getting a flu shot has never been more important. Many people are staying indoors, wearing a mask, and washing their hands frequently. In this environment, patients ask me, “With all this social distancing, d…
On Friday evenings, my family usually listens to my husband DJ music in the basement, streaming online on Twitch, and dancing along. During one of these nights, I went upstairs to check on my two girls and remembered to check online for my routine COVI…
