When I was in college three decades ago, someone close to me was diagnosed with HIV. He was in his early 20s. The only drug available was the controversial AZT, an expensive drug originally designed to treat cancer. I thought my friend would die. Since then, we have made tremendous strides, but HIV remains an
As an epidemiologist and former public health official, I’ve noticed a lot of coverage in the news about COVID vaccine hesitancy issues in BIPOC communities, and I, like many other clinicians, am working hard to address those issues. But there is one demographic that I’ve seen very little discussion on – men. And with the
Kisses, hugs, cuddles, breakfast in bed/beautiful brunch outdoors is how I remember celebrating Mother’s Day with my kids in the past, but 2020 was a bit different. As a physician caring for children with COVID-19, along with being a mother of 2 young children, the celebration during this pandemic had been an unusual experience. I
“When faced with an existential crisis, any organization, as large as a nation or as small as a marriage, will go one of two ways. Either it will bond together, coalesced in a common purpose, or it will collapse in a spasm of blame and shame. While our health care institutions displayed the inestimable value
You would think that the vaccine rollout wouldn’t be so difficult. We had some brilliant scientists who raced against time and developed novel vaccines with technology never used before. Both Pfizer and Moderna used unique mRNA technology. The vaccine is administered into your arm muscle and enters your muscle cells. The mRNA instructs your muscle
For over a year, I have watched and witnessed the multitude of ways that COVID has ignited crisis after crisis in our country and across the world. At first, the crisis of the unknown and the ill-prepared – we as health care professionals did not know what we were dealing with, nor did we even
I am a palliative care physician in a hospital in our nation’s capital region. Like most urban hospitals, ours has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. My colleagues and I are exhausted and emotionally devastated. We are not alone. Yesterday I learned a friend of mine from medical school, a selfless and compassion-driven
The term “mRNA lipid nanoparticle” has become common of late, given the use of Pfizer/BioNTech’s and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines make of nanoparticles to carry mRNA into cells. Once inside a cell, the mRNA instructs the cell to make pieces of the proteins that make up the SARS-CoV-2 virus, a process called “translation.” In so doing,
United States health officials have lifted the 10-day pause of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID vaccine. This pause dealt a devastating blow to the nationwide vaccination effort. The seven-day moving average of vaccinations in the U.S. peaked right before the pause, and has been trending downward. Fear of developing blood clots is adding to vaccine hesitancy. Moving forward, …Read more…
You have seen those harrowing pictures. Patients dying outside the hospitals while waiting for a bed. People on oxygen masks gasping for air-sharing beds. Dead bodies piling up in morgues. Overstretched crematoriums and burial grounds. COVID has hit India very hard in April 2021. This is the second wave of disease in the country. They
I feel privileged to have received both of my COVID-19 vaccine doses. Although, despite the COVID-19 pandemic killing over 562,000 Americans, 37% are hesitant about receiving this vaccine themselves. The World Health Organization defines vaccine hesitancy as a “delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccine services” and in 2019, named vaccine
“Nowadays, I go on long walks through the city alone. I make dinner for one. When I go on bike rides, it’s a solo activity. I find comfort in myself, slowing down and making every small occasion a simple, peaceful one. I have a stronger sense of self, and through that, I …Read more…
During this pandemic, do we blame people for acquiring COVID or do we empathize? I wonder this as I read a message from my senior, who mentions that people are suffering or in isolation due to COVID because of their own negligence. My mind reflects back on all the dying doctors who caught the infection
I’ve been limiting my COVID-19 related engagement with social media because this has been a rough year. I like being a resource for my loved ones about COVID-19 stuff, but it feels never-ending. A friend of mine asked me to weigh in on a letter sent to our local school board. It claimed that masks
Emily Watters is a physician who explains the connection between blood clots and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine (click to enlarge): Emily Watters is a psychiatrist and can be reached at The Cartoon Shrink. Image credits: Emily Watters
On a recent call with a small health organization in rural Uganda, I asked the director about the C-section rate in the community. In some private maternity centers, this procedure is performed far more often than one might expect. I’ve learned that while this practice may be financially motivated, the extra fees also pay for
“Instead of focusing on one organ system, I want to know everything. The diagnostic challenge is to discern patterns of insults, symptoms, and lab tests that correlate with specific microbes, specific organ dysfunction, specific diet issues, and environmental exposures. We keep asking questions until we detect patterns in the chronically ill …Read more…
Reading this title, you’re probably shaking your head in disbelief, disgruntlement, or more than likely a passionate mixture of the two. And for good reason: It’s no secret that seniors are extremely vulnerable to COVID-19, especially when considering that they are drastically more likely to require hospitalization and even die if they do contract the
COVID-19 is the first-ever “politicized pandemic” in human history. COVID-19 happened in an era of widespread social media which helped the general population to understand the disease better and faster. However, the public also formulated an opinion about it. The problem was that their opinions were distilled by the information they were exposed to. And
So many of us keep looking around and thinking, what now? Meaning now that “it’s” over, what is next. Are we supposed to go back to that life from before? Is that what is happening? Isn’t that what we are seeing on social media and in the lay press. The return to normalcy. The “freedom”
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