I was “activated” to duty on the inpatient COVID surge teams last week. I was worried, not only because it’s been a decade since I’ve been in charge of an inpatient service, but more so because SARS-CoV-2 is a new virus, and COVID19* is a …
I got the email from my boss on Tuesday: “You are receiving this message because you have been scheduled to staff an inpatient COVID-19 surge team…” What followed was a really long, dense list of critically important logistical/ workflow/ orientation information, replete with links to …
You guys may not know this, but up until this pandemic, primary care has been the runt of the medical litter. Like, if the different branches of medicine were a high school sitcom, outpatient internal medicine would be the dorky intellectual kid who everyone knows …
I can’t imagine there’s anyone who doesn’t feel extra- anxious right now. If you’re feeling chill and happy and relaxed, then by all means, skip this post. For everyone else experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s pretty normal to feel stressed. But these natural negative emotions …
This is a play-by-play of my day at work, during the pandemic. My alarm goes off at 5 a.m. I always get up extra-early for work, mostly because the T is variably reliable, and running late for clinic gives me palpitations. Better to avoid being …
In the space of just a few weeks, multiple private COVID-19 subgroups have formed on Facebook, including a massive healthcare worker group with 250,000 members, a doctor-mom-only group with 30,000 members, a physician group of 20,000 members, and more. Colleagues from all over the world …
Hospitals are running low on personal protective equipment (PPE). Several have asked the public for donations, and even called for skilled individuals to sew handmade face masks. Some hospitals are specifying that these handmade masks are for patients, so they can save “official” PPE for …
What I’m seeing is what everyone is seeing: All of the greater Boston hospitals report more and more patients with coronavirus are admitted or in the emergency room. At our hospital, the number quadrupled overnight to fifty-three. Despite the sharp increase in numbers, things are …
Today in my work email there was a priority message from the Massachusetts Department of Health: “As of March 13, Massachusetts has begun to see some initial evidence of community spread of COVID-19 and the Department of Public Health (DPH) has made recommendations consistent with …
Coronavirus is an unprecedented organism, and we’re learning about it in real time. We hope that we learn, anyway, from the lived experience of other communities around the world. I’m thankful to work at an incredible teaching hospital*, where experts have come together as high-functioning …