During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, hospital edicts issued to protect patients would expose institutional frailties. The drastic implementation of nationwide telehealth measures would detrimentally affect patients who lacked access to health…
At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, 46 million people were placed under a 76-day lockdown in Wuhan, China. The conversation around this initial story centered on the resilience of that population, isolating in the face of an unknown and deadly t…
Game of Thrones has become a focus of American pop culture over the last eight years. Even now, almost a year after the finale aired, people are still discussing the impact of the show and the controversial last season. Many of us were hoping to finall…
Smithfield Foods, the nation’s largest pork producer, closed its Sioux Falls, SD, slaughterhouse after many Smithfield employees grew sick. Tyson Foods closed its Columbus Junction, IA pork slaughterhouse in April, according to the Wall Street Jo…
My patient was a young man who wanted to be placed back on buprenorphine. He had started using again. He often missed appointments, did not pick up phone calls. So when I saw him in the room, I masked my surprise. “What makes you want to start today?” …
Drinking the Kool-Aid Across the USA recently, demonstrators wielding, “Stop the madness! It is just a cold virus!” and “Let me work” signs, chanting “Freedom now” and “Fire Fauci,” dangerously demanded a…
Elise loves this book. The protagonist is a girl who, due to a desire to fit in with her friends, denies her love of lima beans. Camilla awakens with stripes on her skin, and no one can explain it. The doctors are called in, then the specialists. The s…
“Would an STI cause abdominal pain?” someone in a class discussion asked. “Well, when I had chlamydia, I didn’t have abdominal pain,” I responded truthfully. Instantly, the group went silent. “OK, Jay. That’s … TMI,” someone else in the group quickly r…
We all love a good conspiracy theory. Did a man really walk on the moon? Who really killed JFK? On and on. The medical conspiracy theories have also been around. The anti-vaccine movement has left many children vulnerable to preventable life-threatenin…
Life may never be the same after COVID-19. With tens of thousands of Americans having succumbed to the coronavirus in the United States, some of us are considering our own mortality. Life insurance companies have plenty of new customers. Estate plan…
