Health

Critical care physicians have been through hell

It was a cold winter morning in January 2021. Another day in the ICU, another day caring for critically ill patients with complex medical conditions, another day caring for patients on their death beds, another day interacting with patients’ families and their emotions, another day of putting on a strong face for my patients, their […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Physician, PA NP, Critical Care, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

I keep going because I miss them. And I miss me.

I have written a lot about how COVID has changed me. Changed medicine. Changed America.  I have written about it as a pivot point.  A way to build a better medical infrastructure.  I have alluded to how we can use innovation, advocacy, and listening to turn 2020 into an opportunity for change.  How we can […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Physician, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Dealing with a bad boss: lessons from Dr. Fauci

More and more, we physicians have “bosses,” and, as in any field, the quality of those bosses varies widely. When the White House Coronavirus Task Force was unveiled in the spring, with the president and two of the nation’s leading infectious disease physicians, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, standing shoulder to shoulder around […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, White House, Infectious Disease, Anthony Fauci, Fauci, Physician, PA NP, CRNA, Deborah Birx, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Why do people keep going to church?

Physicians in general are a pretty intelligent group of professionals. However, we sometimes make the mistake of thinking that we must also know a lot about almost everything because we know a lot about one particular thing. However, given the exploding pace of advancing knowledge, that idea is hubristic. But it isn’t just science and […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Physician, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Why this physician misses the waiting room

“Please wait.  The meeting host will let you in soon.” I am in the virtual waiting room for my weekly therapy session, the little waiting room box dragged to the side of my screen as I respond to clinical messages.  I put off stretching to reply to an email, remaining in the chair I’ve been […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Physician, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Getting the COVID vaccine: a behind the scenes look

Don’t let images deceive you. You may think you see everything in my picture after getting the vaccine, but you don’t. Let me take you behind the scenes of my life this past year. As I can only imagine what being behind the scenes of your life has been like for you. What you don’t […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

COVID vaccines: side effects, myths, and madness

I received my COVID vaccine on December 21st before starting an ER shift; sitting in the cold, plastic chair in a hallway-turned-vaccine-clinic, I tipped my head back to blink tears into submission as I reflected on making it this far in the pandemic without contracting COVID.  Four days later, after three twelve-hour shifts, I tested […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Unmasking inequality: the power of community organization during COVID-19 [PODCAST]

“Touted by some as a ‘great equalizer,’ the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront long-standing disparities in access to health for Black, Latinx, immigrant, and low-income communities. While we are all in this fight together, some are bearing the burden more than others. Studies have shown that Blacks in the United States are especially […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Podcast, United States, Infectious Disease, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

I lost my father during the global pandemic

I had a dream last night. I dreamt that my father wasn’t dead. It was jumbled in so many ways. But I was able to talk to him in my “sleep.” I watched This is Us before bed. The episode where Randall questions whether William lied to him about his mother’s death. William saw her […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, William, Randall, Physician, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

State sanctioned executions in the age of COVID-19

When the federal government executed Corey Johnson at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on the 14th of January, 2021, he was COVID-19 positive. He was executed while suffering from a highly contagious respiratory illness that is killing over 4,000 Americans each day. Despite his positive diagnosis for COVID-19 and his risk for […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Policy, Infectious Disease, Terre Haute Indiana, Corey Johnson, PA NP, United States Penitentiary, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

How the vaccinated may become the next super-spreaders

With COVID-19 vaccines being administered to our front-line health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel of this pandemic. Yet, given the time-limited nature of the vaccine’s development, we have yet to learn the extent to which vaccinated people can spread […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

COVID vaccines, overcoming skepticism, and pandemic theater [PODCAST]

“Environmental cleaning rightfully plays a more prominent role within health care facilities to control the spread of other diseases, but even hospitals have overreacted when it comes to contact precautions for SARS-CoV-2.  I recently went to get a flu shot from one of the hospitals I cover, and I couldn’t help but think that several […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Podcast, Infectious Disease, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Can we stop wasting the COVID-19 vaccine?

As I write today, COVID-19 has killed more than 380,000 people in the United States. The country is averaging close to 200,000 cases per day and has a record number of patients hospitalized at this time. This trend shows no signs of abating. Unfortunately, this only means that the number of hospitalized patients and the […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, United States, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Burials: We can’t keep up

Those were the headlines in one of the Sunday papers. He was around fifty years old and with his wife. They stood in front of me in the supermarket. He was in shorts and a light blue t-shirt, wearing beach flip-flops. Standard casual wear for the holiday beach town where I work at Netcare Kingsway […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus, Netcare Kingsway

Vaccinating athletes will show us if the vaccine works

As I watched the vaccine rollout take place over the past month, all I can say is that I am not surprised. I watched hospital executives who never see patients jump the line, doctors having their healthy nannies vaccinated, and health systems trusted with vaccine doses have essentially no plan. It’s like we didn’t have […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Pandemic challenges for patients with heart disease

It is stressful enough to live with heart disease. Now, with a global pandemic, access to health care providers has shifted from in-office to telemedicine in many instances. There are challenges for patients with heart disease in this context: Patients are often older and are not familiar with using technology for videoconferencing (Zoom, Doximity, FaceTime, […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Facetime, Conditions, Cardiology, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

A national patient identifier would make vaccinating the entire U.S. population easier

Developing the COVID-19 vaccine was the first monumental milestone on a long and arduous journey to achieving the entire U.S. population’s vaccination. One of the barriers to achieving this task is the absence of a reliable, scalable way to uniquely identify each individual before or after they receive the vaccine. Furthermore, in the absence of […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

This physician is overwhelmed. She is not alone. [PODCAST]

“I am overwhelmed right now. I know I am not alone. I hear it in the voices of my friends, family, colleagues, patients. We are all feeling it. I am overwhelmed by this virus. There is so much to learn, so much to teach. Every day the information changes. Who is credible? Who is just […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Podcast, Infectious Disease, Primary Care, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Not all frontline health workers who need priority vaccination are doctors and nurses

Canadians breathed a huge sigh of relief when the federal government approved the first COVID-19 vaccine and saw the first immunizations take place. The end of the pandemic and the prospect of a return to normal, whatever that means, became a real possibility. Rolling out a national vaccination program will be no small feat. In […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Grief during the pandemic 

With this third surge and our ICUs at zero capacity in Los Angeles, I spent  New Year’s Eve alone at my apartment, recovering from a wards rotation I had completed the night before. No revelry or celebration for me this year.  For months, this virus has been wreaking havoc on our lives and slowly,   then […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Los Angeles, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, Hospital-Based Medicine, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Why this critical care doctor got the COVID-19 vaccine

December is typically busy in the ICU. Flu and respiratory viral pneumonia cases start trickling into the ICU, interspersed with cardiac arrests, strokes, pulmonary emboli, septic shock, and COPD exacerbations. The ICU census starts creeping up. December 2020 has been unique and challenging. There were seemingly endless days of patients coming to the ICU, only […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

As a busy primary care doctor, here is what I am facing

“Doctor, how are you doing?” I’m really so grateful when people take the time to ask this. But when I respond, candidly, that it’s been tough and I’m definitely not doing great, I often hear, “But you haven’t had any patients who have died from COVID, have you? And you got the vaccine, didn’t you?” […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

The consequences of the coronavirus pandemic are eternal

She was rather calm during her visit.  It was the first time we’d met, and she was establishing primary care with our office and me.  We were both delighted to learn she was from a small Georgia town not too far from where I previously practiced, and we quickly reminisced about the slow pace, lack […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Georgia, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Upholding the principles of informed consent in the fight against vaccine hesitancy

Experts have taken to social media to quell misinformation and address common concerns about Pfizer’s messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine, performing an important public service in support of robust vaccine uptake. However, some scientific information is being oversimplified to the point that it is misleading. The public’s decision to take a vaccine whose long-term risks […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Pfizer, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Under the COVID testing tent

As a podiatrist, Dr. M usually focuses on feet. But years of military service and expertise in program implementation and measurement qualified him for another clinical job, setting up a COVID test site. Testing stations were available in the suburbs, but the heart of the epidemic, the urban center, needed a walk-up and drive-up option. […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

An unexpected COVID-19 vaccine side effect

Introduction Today, I had my second shot of the Pfizer vaccine and suffered an unexpected and unreported side effect. That’s the problem with a new medical treatment; you never know what might happen. Transformation Just a few seconds after the needle penetrated my arm, I felt a mild soreness, kind of like a flu shot. […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

It’s time to treat the COVID-19 vaccine campaign as if we are at war

The abysmal attempt at mass vaccination against COVID-19 in the United States is uninspiring—a prophecy seemingly set in stone by the testing debacles’ failures. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday, that of 17 million doses, only 4.8 million had been administered. That’s only 28.4 percent of distributed doses in over three […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, United States, Infectious Disease, Centers For Disease Control And Prevention, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID, COVID-19 Coronavirus

The COVID-19 vaccine: We got it. Let’s get it.

A few weeks ago, a small rural hospital in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, received its first shipment of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and quickly began vaccinating the hospital’s health care workers and skilled nursing facility staff and residents. After the Barnes-Kasson County Hospital immunized all the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Class 1A workers and residents who […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. ...
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices ACIP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus, Susquehanna Pennsylvania, Barnes Kasson County Hospital

COVID malaise, and more COVID-19 coping tips from the trenches

I write this now as both a time capsule and a vision of hope at the bitter end of 2020. At this point, a COVID-19 vaccine (the vision of hope) has been developed by several companies but has not yet received widespread distribution. Realistically, I know we are in for more quarantines, social distancing, and […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Psychiatry, Infectious Disease, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus

Why public schools need to open for the most vulnerable

Pandemic. COVID-19. Quarantine. The words will forever be etched in our memories. While for all the pandemic has been a challenge, it has also meant more time with family, time to learn a new hobby, and the flexibility of working from home.  Its memory is one of loss of income, home, and loss of life […] Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more.
Tags: Health, Infectious Disease, Pediatrics, Conditions, PA NP, CRNA, COVID-19 Coronavirus