The idiot's guide to coronavirus from an emergency physician
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Here are the stories you missed on KevinMD. Thank you for your continuing readership. Sponsors How can you improve communications to enhance the provider experience and pursue the quadruple aim? Explore how better communications can help make positive impacts on 3 important issues facing providers today. Read now. A well-constructed infection control preparedness plan for coronavirus (COVID-19) is essential for facilities where patients receive care, such as physician offices, dental offices, long-term care facilities, and ambulatory care centers. Struggling with too little time and too many responsibilities? This whitepaper offers critical strategies for alleviating burnout. It's time to heal health care.
KevinMD Plus: Mar 12, 2020
The idiot’s guide to coronavirus from an emergency physician 1. Take it easy. The worst part of all this is the fear. More people die from the flu, car accidents, or guns. As of Saturday, March 7th, 19 Americans had died from COVID-19, compared to 1,177 every week from the flu, 746 from car crashes, and 294 from gunshots. 2. Wash your hands like […] Love in the time of coronavirus “The weak would never enter the kingdom of love.” ― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera As the medical community grapples to come up with an appropriate response and protect our patients from this latest pandemic, I cannot help but wonder how the mighty COVID-19, measuring all of 0.1 microns has come to affect […] What prevents coronavirus? A pathologist grades COVID-19 precautions. COVID-19 is here, and it isn’t going away. The SARS-CoV2 virus, and the disease it causes, has entered the ecosystem of human pathogens and is running up numbers that make it appear to be heading into the realm of the pandemic. Let’s look at how health care workers and patients alike can mitigate the damage it […] What COVID-19 taught me about autonomy I came back from a family vacation to Italy one day before the first case of novel coronavirus was reported there. Two days later, the CDC issued a Level 3 travel warning for visitors to Italy. Eight days later, and six days after returning to work, I got a fever. I live in Indiana, where […] Practicing oncology during COVID-19 Being an oncologist in New York, having recovered from the trauma of flooding from Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath that ensued when hospitals were flooded in 2012, my anxieties are now heightened again over the global threat and uncertainties surrounding the novel coronavirus. Daily emails from administrators at my institution seek to both reassure as […] How big will the coronavirus pandemic be? An epidemiologist answers. The Harvard historian Jill Lepore recounted recently in The New Yorker magazine that when democracies sink into crisis, the question “where are we going?” leaps to everyone’s mind, as if we were waiting for a weather forecast to tell us how healthy our democracy was going to be tomorrow. Quoting Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, Lepore […]
Medical error disclosure programs: Old habits die hard
A radical change is emerging from within our health care system: Rather than deny or defend medical errors, some hospitals are acknowledging them upfront. This enlightened response has been gaining ground since 2001 when the University of Michigan Hospital introduced one of the first medical error disclosure programs: the Michigan Model. Hospitals that adopt the […] Health care and sick care are interchangeable Does anyone really want health care for all? I promise this is not a political rant. Americans, of any political persuasion, should not be misled by the implications of health care for all: It does not mean medical care for all. Providing a card stating you have health insurance is only a nominal solution, provided […] Is medicine a minefield of gender discrimination and abuse? I am a 57-year-old female physician, and I remember an incident that involved a cardiologist on the other end of the phone, roughly fifteen years ago. I had recently started work as a hospitalist, and the cardiologist and I had never met. He clearly didn’t pay attention to my introduction, because when he heard my […] Dear patients: Please show up on time There is constant tension to remain on-time working in a primary care clinic, seeing patients every twenty minutes back-to-back. It takes an incredible ability for the front desk staff, medical assistants, and the physician to be able to keep this flow running smoothly only to have it be derailed by the late patient who does […] Can empathy be taught, or is it innate? In medical school, I was taught to sit down at eye-level when speaking to a patient, ask them how they’d prefer to be addressed, make sure to ask questions in an open-ended manner to allow patients to express themselves, and interject with “that must be really difficult for you” or “I can only imagine how […] A critical moment that resulted in a permanent, devastating consequence An excerpt from Looking Within: Understanding Ourselves through Human Imaging. It started as a routine weekend shift, reading studies on patients in the hospital and the emergency department, when the phone rang. Jessie, the nuclear medicine technologist, spoke on the telephone, his matter-of-fact tone slightly colored by the ominous nature of the information conveyed. “Doc, […] What makes health care workers superhuman “So, the next step in the history taking process is to define the pain. You start this by asking for site, with questions like, “Where are you experiencing the pain? Can you pinpoint the site or is it more general? Does the pain radiate (spread anywhere)?” And if the pain is on one side of […] Continuing medical education: Why it’s important and how to make it effective With the escalating pressures on hospitals, health care facilities, and practitioners to be cost-effective, it is increasingly difficult to justify spending money on education and training. Education and training are expensive when adding together the costs of curriculum development and educators. While finding the right person for the job is important in getting the job […] On-demand doctors: Are we becoming medical waiters? Seven years ago, I vividly recalled a patient saying, “It needs to be as easy to schedule with you as OpenTable.” For most health care systems, this request is now a reality. Yet, how far has the restaurant metaphor moved into patient expectations? Recently on a closed Facebook physician group, a post discussed how to […] Entitlement, arrogance, and isolation in modern-day medical practice I recently read a medical school commencement, delivered by a physician, that was both inspiring and sadly reminiscent of what physicians should aspire to throughout their careers. This physician relayed how patients throughout her training and career had provided her with moments of clarity, helping her identify the “why” she chose a career in medicine. […] The right support system makes all the difference for physicians In the neonatal ICU, a baby dies from necrotizing enterocolitis or NEC. It’s not the first, nor the last time I’ll experience death during my medical career. Doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, surgeons, and the rest of the team spent the days prior to his death, implementing medical interventions and procedures hoping to arrest the process. […] Renewal is what we need during residency training The need for a refreshed perspective on life and practice, a renewed sense of the concerns of our patients, and an appreciation for the subject matter: This is what so many of us need while in residency training. There are rare moments in the midst of it all when a renewing of sorts takes place, […] Should we avoid exposing residents to coronavirus? The arrival of the novel COVID-19 to the U.S., and the inevitability of its eventual spread, raises an interesting question: Should we avoid exposing residents to the virus? Before we try to answer this question, we should start with some important qualifiers. While a good deal about this novel virus remains unknown, the majority of cases […] Please tell us your cosmetic secrets. We promise not to tell. I live and work in Los Angeles, one of the plastic surgery capitals of the world. Quite a few of my patients have “had a little work done” — the blandly euphemistic term you’ll hear for plastic surgery makeovers of all kinds. That’s fine. Plastic surgeons have children to feed too. The problem is this: […] Self-quarantines will lead to health worker shortages As the U.S. battles to limit the spread of the highly contagious new coronavirus, the number of health care workers ordered to self-quarantine because of potential exposure to an infected patient is rising at an exponential pace. In Vacaville, California, alone, one case — the first documented instance of community transmission in the U.S. — […] Kobe Bryant’s memory should serve as a reminder to enjoy life to its fullest On January 26, 2020, Kobe Bryant passed away. People all across the world have been impacted in different ways. Two weeks have passed, and Kobe is still the main topic of conversation on social media. To each person, Kobe meant something special. To many, Kobe signified strength; to others, courage. People have grown up with […] 345 Hudson Street New York NY 10014 USA |
Coronavirus: We Must Shut Everything Down
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How a mild coronavirus case can turn deadly |
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