In 2021, I spent the year before starting medical school calling and counseling the patients of a busy urban emergency department on the results of their sexually transmitted infection (STI) tests. “What exactly is gonorrhea?” some would as…
Category: Infectious disease
A physician’s journey with COVID-19: reflections on mental coping mechanisms and seeking care [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! In this episode, we hear from Alen Voskanian, a palliative care physician, who shares his personal experience with COVID-19. Dr. Voskanian reflects on the mental coping mechanisms he used t…
The isolation of the COVID ICU: the need for patient advocates
The COVID ICU is abuzz with monitors beeping and doctors and nurses rushing from bed to bed to care for critically ill patients, most on ventilators. The machines – dialysis, vents, pumps – sound off their rhythmic repetitions; breaths are pushed in an…
Saying goodbye: the tragic impact of COVID-19 on families
“No, no, no! I’m having a nightmare!” She shrieked through the phone. I couldn’t bear to hear it as words fell clumsily out of my mouth. “Your husband couldn’t breathe on his own. We had to put him on a ventilator. I…
The worst illness this physician ever had
An excerpt from Fifty Years a Doctor: The Journey of Sickness and Health, Four Plagues and the Pandemic. Our favorite internist and chairman of the internal medicine department was lecturing us on sensitivity to patients’ suffering when they have…
Let teens self-consent to vaccines
I still remember the exhilaration I felt upon learning that my peers and I could finally return to our in-person classrooms. After a year of Zoom lectures, asynchronous exams, and more, the prospect of seeing each other again thrilled us. However, we h…
Measles: a preventable disease that is making a comeback
I see there has been yet another measles outbreak; at the time of writing, the count is 59 in central Ohio. All are either unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated. No doubt local pediatricians are being flooded with worried parents proffering their offspr…
When contentment falls short
Sliding toward another solstice, I feel myself yearning. I want the daylight to stay a little longer, soft like this, gentle warmth and lovely shadows, lazy breezes, the illusion of contentment. But I am not content. Or perhaps I am, but whereas I once…
A physician in denial after being diagnosed with COVID-19
Over the last three years, we have faced the original COVID-19, followed by Omicron, Delta, and monkeypox. It is apropos that on the third anniversary of COVID-19, we are facing the tripledemic of COVID, influenza, and RSV. After almost three years of …
When your letter to the editor is rejected or ignored
Dear Dr. El-Dalati, I am sorry that we will not be able to publish your recent letter to the editor regarding the Chowdhury article of 16-Sep-2021. The space available for correspondence is very limited, and we must use our judgment to present a repre…
