Category: Infectious disease

The racial disparities of COVID-19 [PODCAST]

  “Some media outlets and public figures have heralded the ongoing pandemic as a great equalizer, referencing the pathogen’s indiscriminate spread and disregard for national borders and tax brackets. The sobering mortality statistics, howeve…

How COVID-19 forced me to pivot and accelerated my business growth  

Since 2008, after embarking as a full-time entrepreneur, my career has been a series of peaks and valleys. By 2016, I had achieved FIRE status in my mid-thirties by investing in residual income-producing investments, including real estate and equities….

Providing clinician support in times of calm and chaos

Before the world was crippled by the spread of COVID-19, physician burnout was already taking an alarming toll on our health care system. Physicians were working more hours, more days, in high-pressure circumstances with excessive charting requirements…

The trouble with medical experts

In early February, I was on my family medicine rotation. This was around Chinese New Year, when many East Asians travel extensively. The hospital I worked in serves a large Chinese community, and rumors about a new pneumonia emerging out of Wuhan, Chin…

Maternity leave in a post-COVID world

I am a female surgical resident. I signed up for this. I chose four years of medical school, five years of residency, two years of research, a year of fellowship, and finally attending surgeon life. I’d choose it again. And I want this road to be hard….

I am an ICU nurse. We are drowning.

I am an ICU nurse. I love what I do; It’s not just a career: It’s who I am. No other job could offer me the intimate opportunity to support and guide a total stranger through the worst (and occasionally best) days of their life. Nowhere els…

Lorna Breen was the quintessential canary in the coal mine

Dr. Lorna Breen, who died by suicide on April 26, was the canary in the coal mine. You can see it in her eyes, and in her smile. I didn’t know her, but I’ll bet she sang. One of her causes was successful communication with autistic patients…

Where’s the big COVID data?

The United States has been the most impacted country in the current COVID-19 crisis. Is COVID, the only common denominator? What else is common to the over 100,000 deaths in the United States, who is collecting and analyzing the death data comprehensiv…

Coronavirus is an elusive enigma

How did coronavirus become so widespread? By the time Dr. Zhang Jixian first reported the cases, it is thought that 180 patients were already infected. The problem with this is that SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, COVID-19, presents in many diffe…

The economics of primary care in a COVID-19 world

Much has been written about the response of the governmental agencies in the foreseeability of COVID-19 spread and management in the United States. Travel restriction from mainland China seemed to be a very timely intervention. However, instead of cons…