Looking back on the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, I hope that we are able to take away several lessons. Immediately after the virus showed up in the United States, many physicians without access to virus testing seemed to go straight to imagi…
I wake up in a cold sweat. It’s 4 a.m. “Are you awake?” The text goes to one of my colleagues and best friends. I call him brother. He responds as calmly and kindly as he always does. “Sure, what’s wrong?” I don̵…
“Come with me on this journey, this very ancient journey. To experience the age-old story of a very modern foe. This foe is invisible; it is neither living nor dead. You cannot smell it, and you cannot taste it. While it is not alive, it can beco…
The severity of COVID appears to be increased in people with obesity. This may represent an opportunity to discuss the benefits of lifestyle change with overweight patients. However, if not done appropriately, the opportunity becomes transformed into j…
“Why is my disease less important than COVID?” Donna asked me toward the end of our phone call. Two years ago, after celebrating her 65th birthday, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia—an aggressive type of blood cancer—which turned out to be …
We have all seen the memes and picture frames on social media. I can’t stay home – I am a health care worker. I am a health care worker. But I have been mostly home the past eight weeks, and the thought of returning to the office full-time has le…
Doctors across America are getting strikingly similar messages from their hospital administrators—that we are highly valued, but that they will reduce our salaries due to the pandemic. Whether you are working on the frontline and risking your life (and…
“It is no secret that we started off combating COVID-19 with disadvantages. Lately, news is rampant with coverage of the paucity of ventilators, hospital beds, and N95 masks. But it is important not to forget the deficits in our workforce. Last y…
Since COVID-19, the way that we practice medicine has changed. Every patient we see, test we order, and treatment we prescribe is under closer scrutiny. Direct patient interaction has been cut to the bare minimum. This has proved to be a challenge in m…
COVID-19 has made the inadequacy of our public health and hospital-based health care system to identify, mitigate, and resolve pandemic disaster self-evident. Gaps in hospital-based preparedness capacity are abundant, including the inadequacy of stockp…
