Medical

The first time I tried running, I hated it. It was only two miles, but I was positive I would never, ever run again. Sure, I understood the many benefits of running like improved heart health, weight management, and better moods. Yet, like many people who initially swear off running, I believed you had to…

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is considered a powerful document at present, more than 70 years after it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at its 3rd session on December 10, 1948, in Paris, France. Since its creation, it is currently available in 360 languages and it is no surprise that it is…

America greatly stands to benefit from a universal face mask policy that mandates face coverings in public. Understandably, adoption of such a policy raises concerns, including: Universal public masking will come with an exaggerated sense of security, loosening people’s social distancing practices. Not everyone will use masks correctly, making their efforts counterproductive. Part of a…

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many vulnerabilities in the U.S. health care system. While shortages of safety equipment and ventilators have been widely reported, the shortage of physicians and staff to manage patients in respiratory failure is also a major concern. Given the reported conditions throughout northern Italy with hospitals operating over capacity and exhausted…

For physicians, residency is the most critical time for growth in clinical and surgical skills, professionalism, and medical knowledge. Your residency training — for better or worse — shapes your future career as a physician. Your surgical technique, clinical decision making, and bedside manner are all, to some degree, a reflection of where you trained.…

Spanish Flu. Japanese Encephalitis. Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome. West Nile Virus. Wuhan Virus (and lately, the “Chinese Virus” as many have begun calling the pathogen that causes COVID-19: SARS-CoV-2). What do these names all have in common, you might ask? Well, for one thing, they were constructed not by a strict scientific nomenclature, but by…

I have had the privilege to serve alongside hundreds of nurses in the nearly 40 years since I started medical school. This includes inpatient and outpatient settings and 20 years of leading medical missions around the world. There are five amazing nurses in my family as well. I have learned from every nurse with whom…

As a health care system, we have united during the COVID-19 public health threat to embrace social distancing and “flatten the curve.”  In order to conserve scarce resources and limit viral transmission, we health care providers have canceled elective surgeries, postponed health screenings, and moved patient encounters to online platforms.  While we are fighting to…

As I write this, we are in dark times. Over 23,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus, and there are half a million diagnosed cases – even with testing far from comprehensive. Most cities are on some sort of lockdown. Most of us have become hyperaware of hygiene and personal space in a way that…