Medical

An excerpt from The Healer’s Burden: Stories and Poems of Professional Grief. Leaning on the door of Trauma Bay 1, I survey the remains of my latest failure. The story is told in the bloody and jumbled instrument trays, monitors now silent and dark. In the center of the room sits a gurney covered with…

I am a medical doctor—a hospitalist working in an environment with many talented professionals.  We share our knowledge and our approach to medicine with one another in ways that profoundly affect our patients and other personnel in the hospital. At our best, we are a community whose foundation is a willingness and openness to discuss…

“Being an entrepreneur can be a lonely road. Everyone dreams of life after a successful round of funds being raised, staff being hired, and plunging headfirst into the making and shipping of widgets. But there are many days which no one talks about, where a budding entrepreneur must find a way to get ideas from…

Life as we know it has been upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. Every aspect of our health care system is affected; in particular, our nation’s frontline workers are being stretched like never before. From managing the pandemic long term to physician well-being, social determinants of health (SDOH), and health care reform, the incoming Administration should…

I am a critical care physician. I am at the frontlines of this pandemic, in a state of “war” against an unseen enemy that has brought unimaginable destruction in its path. I arrive at work at 7 a.m. for my shift. I am in a state of hypervigilance. It is a chilly fall day, but…

After three months as a newly minted doctor, I knew that any plan that I made for my first vacation week would be futile in the context of COVID-19, so I attempted an escape into the headspace of others. During my first day on vacation, I asked my Twitter community to share the following post…

It started with diarrhea.  Then fever before the patient sought care.  The infiltrates were impressive.  A dry cough with paroxysms that were sometimes uncontrollable.   The rapid test came back negative, as did the send out PCR.  The patient returned from international travel two days before admission.  My index of suspicion was extremely high.  Yes, please…

To keep us safe from COVID-19, health experts tell us that we need to stay home and away from other people. This is particularly hard for teens, because their stage of life is all about their peers and becoming independent from their family. So it’s not surprising that the pandemic has been hard on the…

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