Medical
Deploring racism isn’t enough: Addressing white privilege in medical school
If you ask a group of medical students to raise their hands if they are, in fact, racist, I’d venture to guess that not a single hand would shoot up. And I don’t think they would be lying. I am sure that no student believes that he, she, or they are a bigot. Many of…
Read MoreShould we stress about stress? Protecting ourselves during the pandemic.
COVID-19 has exposed us to a wide variety of different stressors. In the short term, our stress response is useful as it helps us respond quickly and effectively. But when the stress lasts longer, we have to identify and acknowledge the “downside” risks. We should not stress about stress but protect ourselves against it. Intense, prolonged stress…
Read MoreAfter COVID-19, there’s no turning back from a digital clinical workforce
Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has challenged our health care industry in profound and irreversible ways, creating massive pressure that has exposed system-wide inefficiencies and inequalities. It has also fundamentally shifted the way first responders, health care providers, hospitals, health systems, and even the federal government are using digital health technologies. The current pressure test that our…
Read MoreIncorporate art therapy into healing spaces
Art is a way to find yourself and lose yourself at the same time. When troubled, we experience the monkey mind, thinking of worst outcomes, or replaying past events. A creative pursuit helps stall that process by helping us actively practice mindfulness. There is no wrong brush stroke in art; you simply incorporate that into…
Read MoreThe hidden wounds of COVID-19
By the time we started to have a significant number of COVID-19 patients in our hospital, I was working as the attending on the inpatient infectious disease service. Along with the rest of my infectious disease colleagues, we had all been tracking the evolving COVID-19 statistics and mounting predictions that we would eventually become inundated…
Read MoreResponding to medical students’ concerns and anxieties during these unprecedented times
Everyone is in the same situation across the country in these unprecedented times. What a statement. A statement that every medical student has undoubtedly heard in utter multitude during these times of virtual medical curricula in place of clinical curricula — of canceled steps, levels, CKs, PE, and CS. It has no doubt been challenging…
Read MoreMy living will during COVID-19
I am not afraid of being dead. Our four grown children are thriving, each in their own way making the world better. If I am wrong in my faith that Jesus is preparing a wonderful place for me, I will never know it. I do dread the process of dying, and COVID-19 would be an…
Read MoreA reasoned response to the PPE debacle
The lack of adequate supplies of PPE is deplorable, inconceivable. This has been made abundantly clear through both social media and traditional media. Post after post on various social media outlets have exposed the appalling shortages and, at times, blame and attack those that are obliged to provide us the PPE. Those posts, in part,…
Read MoreHow to liberate doctors from EMRs
We talk a lot in critical care medicine about liberating patients from ventilators. Vents are getting a lot of deserved attention for saving lives in the COVID-19 era. But the machine has downsides that get worse the longer the patient needs it. Because we’re obsessed with taking great care of our patients, we in ICU…
Read More