Medical

A friend of mine takes a statin medication each day to lower his cholesterol. More than once I’ve heard him say “I ate too much! I’m going to have to take an extra pill.” Never mind that it doesn’t work that way — a single additional statin pill won’t make much difference to his cholesterol…

During times of stress, true colors show. The United States is a global leader and literally a dream for millions around the world. During the pandemic pandemonium, we should want to be proud to be American. What does that mean right now, though? After the government’s expansive recent transformations in their role with emergency programs…

I was quite young, but I could sense the unease in my mother when she first sent me off to elementary school amidst an uncertain risk of paralytic polio in the 1950’s era. She maintained her frightened countenance until 1960 when the Sabin vaccine miraculously appeared.  Many years later, my wife, a pediatrician, had intubated…

I have been reading, thinking and consulting for a while about the occupational health syndrome commonly referred to as burnout. As initially defined back in the 1970s, burnout is a state of mental and physical exhaustion caused by one’s professional life. Extensive research shows that burnout (also called work “strain”) is the result of working…

The world is paused. But is it? Just because the world is experiencing a pandemic does not mean that the rest of the world’s ailments all of a sudden go away.  Their priority may fall in ranking, but they persist. Health and disease continue. I ate lunch and had severe abdominal pain shortly thereafter.  Perhaps…

There have been increasing statements in the media to the effect that, for the COVID-19 pandemic, “the cure is worse than the disease,” and that the economic impact of the drastic and widespread quarantines will cause a severe recession that will result in excess deaths. This is very unlikely, as the overall U.S. mortality from…

COVID-19 has given us many things, some of which we expected. Scarce resources, anxiety about keeping ourselves and our families safe, a sense of unparalleled vulnerability, and a solid helping of helplessness, knowing ultimately we may not be able to function as the doctors we strive to be when it matters most. Personally, COVID-19 has…

It has been a month since the first case of SARS-CoV-2 presented in my hospital in South Jersey. The virus has been causing devastation around the globe since December 2019, and before the United States – China, Italy, and Spain suffered the greatest casualties. Like many physicians, I continue to blog in order to spread…