The last several months have seen many COVID-19 vaccine milestones. Nationally, we’ve managed to crawl past the 50% vaccinated milestone, even if many rural counties are hovering at or below 40%. On November 2, the CDC recommended the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 through 11 . On November 4, the Occupational Health and Safety… Continue reading I want freedom too.
Tag: COVID-19
Letting Go
Six months ago, I tried to write something about the Capitol Riot. The simmering fear that I’d been feeling, that I might have to walk away from my understaffed team in an act of civil disobedience if the election results weren’t certified, had boiled over into some concoction of anger, sadness, confusion, and worry about… Continue reading Letting Go
Our Shot
It felt like staggering across a finish line. I looked around and saw hundreds of thousands of shadows. The martyrs, the victims of the virus, of our callousness, so many of them Black and Brown. The tens of thousands of study volunteers who offered to go first. I was carried to the finish line by… Continue reading Our Shot
A Time of Thanksgiving
I have sacrificed for you. My body. There is a persistent rash on my right chin, red and rubbed raw from 14 hour days in scratchy masks under fluorescent lights. My nose, and the noses of my colleagues, have been squished, pushed, bent, and infected by the augmented gas masks in which we sometimes fight… Continue reading A Time of Thanksgiving
Did you know that Florida and New York are different?
I’m so happy that tabloid journalism is hopping back on the COVID-19 complaint train. It’s so refreshing to read what communications majors think about public health and medicine and so comforting to see their opinions widely shared on social media. It makes wearing my N95 for 14 hours a day at work more bearable. I’m… Continue reading Did you know that Florida and New York are different?
Take a deep breath
Things suck right now. We have this scary new disease rampaging through the world. We don’t have a vaccine or treatment or any of the modern medical marvels on which we’ve all come to rely. We waited so long to respond to this threat that it has now overwhelmed us. And scared us. And inconvenienced… Continue reading Take a deep breath
I am not a soldier.
I do not know very much about the military. I do know that it is a favorite analogy of many, including my profession. We can all imagine the doctor issuing commands from the foot of a dying patient’s bed. Or a surgeon barking orders in the operating room as a patient bleeds on the table.… Continue reading I am not a soldier.
The True Cost of COVID-19
My primary job as a physician is to preserve life. It is not a war with death. There are no weapons or enemies or battlegrounds. My job is a negotiation with death. We sit together, death, the patient, and I, discussing, mediating, talking, crying. I take this part of my job seriously and I am… Continue reading The True Cost of COVID-19
Coronavirus for Dummies
No, I don’t think you’re dummies. In fact you’re probably the smart one. You probably didn’t waste over $200,000 on a medical degree. But you’re in luck! I did. There is a ton of information floating around about coronavirus. A lot of it is about necessary public health measures or the political response. Some of… Continue reading Coronavirus for Dummies
The Five Stages of my Personal Pandemic
Two weeks ago, I was talking all about how COVID-19 was just a bad version of the flu. We would all get it eventually, it would be fine, people should keep living their lives. I was wrong. I was in denial. Then, I moved on to anger. I was angry that my family decided to… Continue reading The Five Stages of my Personal Pandemic
Nobody asked me... 