It started mid-March with the sensation that I had cut one of my knuckles. Within two weeks, several fingers were swollen like sausages, and my fingertips had developed painful, burning spots. Soon thereafter, my husband noted one red, swollen toe. We …
“Children are being encouraged to take on the superhero persona and help protect others. They do this in true average-person-as-the-superhero style by wearing a facemask alone, without any superhero powers or words. Just as wearing a facemask i…
A tale of two pandemics: Around the time of the coronavirus outbreak, 2019 also marked a full century since the death of Sir William Osler, who revolutionized medical training. Despite some lingering debate over whether Dr. Osler’s pneumonia-related de…
“We are health care workers. We are doctors, advanced care practitioners, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, and so much more. We are on the frontlines. We are our parents’ children, and we are parents to our young children. For the first time,…
An excerpt from Parenting in a Pandemic: How to help your family through COVID-19. When my husband and I made the decision to purchase a house outside of New York City, the prior owners left behind a trampoline. The trampoline is big, above ground, and…
Amidst the crushing human and economic carnage inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic, one innocent bystander has been cowering in the dark corner of medicine’s past, clinging to its final breaths of iconicity: the beloved stethoscope. For over two centuri…
“It’s maddening to see the differences in health outcomes between the rich and the poor. Even more unsettling is reflecting upon the psychological pain accumulated when living in a fad-obsessed materialistic comparison-creating society, the postp…
One commonality amongst all reporting associated with the COVID-19 pandemic: “unprecedented.” Unprecedented circumstances, unprecedented symptomatology, unprecedented prevalence, and now, unprecedented velocity. “300 million doses of a safe, effective …
Imagine a future where you wake up, go to the bathroom, pick up a small strip of paper, and put it in a tube with your saliva and saline. By the time you are done with part of your morning routine, within 15 minutes or so, the paper will tell you if t…
“Since the coronavirus outbreak, reports of anxiety have increased, especially among physicians. Physicians face numerous stressors, including fears of contracting the coronavirus, concerns about potentially infecting loved ones, PPE shortages, t…
