Medical
A new ICU reality that may not disappear soon
Barriers. Barriers of yellow tape and plastic mark our makeshift rooms. Red zippers define the “ENTER” and “EXIT.” In the middle is a window of still clearer plastic, partially obscured by taped ECGs. Barriers are put up to keep us safe, but they can do so much more, if we let them. A tap on…
Read MoreDaily decisions about risk: What to do when there’s no right answer
Let’s face it: there’s still a deadly virus out there and it’s not going away anytime soon. And that means we all must make a lot of decisions that involve personal risk. And for many of these daily decisions, there’s no single right answer: no Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines, World Health Organization recommendations,…
Read MoreOn the last day of intern year, ready to take the next step
When you are a week out from finishing your intern year, you start to feel pretty confident. When you are a week out from finishing your intern year, and you spent the last four months of it on a COVID floor in a major New York City hospital, you start to feel particularly confident. Whether…
Read MoreConfessions of a non-clinical ID physician during COVID-19 times
After 20 years of working at a hospital, I was ready to try something new. I had provided primary and specialty care to adults living with HIV or viral hepatitis for two decades, taught scores of students, residents, and fellows, successfully led our hepatitis program, conducted clinical research in the areas of HIV, disparities, HCV…
Read MoreIMGs are abandoned during COVID
The Match is a stressful time during any physician’s life. Applicants study for, arrange for, and lose sleep over their USMLE steps, their letters of recommendation, and their personal statements. The matching process is particularly difficult during a global pandemic. As COVID-19 spread in March 2020, all USMLE testing was suspended. Applicants were reassured that…
Read MoreA physician learns from the lessons of running
Slow. Sluggish. Feet dragging. Legs heavy. The run was not the effortless morning wake-up I had envisioned when I sat on front steps tying the shoes. The gazelle I had envisioned, gently bouncing over the trails, had turned into more of a hippo waddling along. Then, around 15 minutes into the run, I remembered a…
Read MorePhysician finance tips in the year 2020 [PODCAST]
Physicians are finding out that their jobs aren’t as secure as they thought. Many have taken salary acts, are furloughed, or worse, laid off completely. It comes as a financial shock to many doctors. In this episode, gastroenterologist and certified financial coach Brent Lacey shares his tips and advice on how physicians can navigate these…
Read MoreA young mother’s medical school journey
I was 19 years old when I became pregnant. Pregnancy and birth, at such a young age, was both the happiest and the scariest thing to have happened to me. My dream of becoming a doctor began when I was in middle school, from a seemingly mundane moment that suddenly and unexpectedly changed the course…
Read MoreCOVID-19 unmasks a broken system
2020 has presented us with unprecedented challenges. We’re six months into a pandemic that was only officially recognized half as long ago. This crisis was ignored, discredited, and camouflaged, unnecessarily worsening today’s chaos. It’s baffling that the “strongest” leader of the free world was presented with such a predictable series of events already occurring in…
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