Medical

I’m a dissenter from way back. Perhaps it’s my red hair and nearly 6-foot frame that made me always feel different.  I never quite fit the mold as a good Southern girl.  I’m too loud, too assertive, too much a leader. I struggled with some of the belief systems around me, so I majored in…

Troubled by the volume of patients dying before they could even be taken out of ambulances, a New York emergency physician recently ended her own life. Are we all just vital statistics, waiting to be calculated? COVID-19 has infected and killed more than 56,000 Americans. We must remember that every single one of these deaths…

I feel like I am reliving a bad dream. The race to find a treatment and/or cure to SARS-CoV-2 is reminiscent of decades of practicing gastroenterology while hepatitis C roamed the hospital wards as a death sentence for many. I found myself recently recalling a patient whose story ends with science finding a cure.  As…

If you haven’t had a tetanus booster shot in the past decade, your doctor may recommend getting one. Many people think of a tetanus shot as something you only need if you step on a rusty nail. Yet even in the absence of a puncture wound, this vaccine is recommended for all adults at least…

I am an orthopedic surgeon in New Jersey and recently started a new practice. Less than a week after starting, news of COVID-19 arriving in NYC was everywhere. My family, my hospital system, and the rest of the country was trying to get a handle on this virus when my daughter spiked a fever that…

I was seven years old when I first got my heart broken. I was swiftly rebuffed by my second-grade crush, Brett who, upon getting gently pecked on the cheek by me one afternoon following recess, grimaced and began aggressively wiping off the invisible remnants of the kiss with the palms of both his hands, swiping…

As I stand in line at a Tampa Lowe’s today in the middle of a global pandemic, I cannot help but note the vast differences in people’s behavior around me. There is a complete dichotomy in the ways in which individuals are responding to COVID-19. Some customers who err on the side of safety are…

The reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic in the comprehensive psychiatric emergency program (CPEP) began insidiously, with an initial sense of unease. Patients are brought into CPEP when they pose a danger to themselves or others. Often they are brought by police, but occasionally they come on their own or with concerned family members. CPEP is…