In April 2020, Lorna M. Breen, a top emergency physician in New York City, committed suicide. Breen had no history of mental illness, but prior to her death, according to The New York Times, she described to her father “an onslaught of patients who were dying before they could even be taken out of ambulances.”…
Java Tunson, an emergency medicine physician in Washington state, got into healthcare to create a meaningful impact in her patients’ lives—not to take on the systemic racism that permeates the field. But after noticing that underrepresented minority doctors were almost entirely absent in her resident classes, Tunson felt compelled to act. She co-launched a pilot…
Because of his status as a healthcare worker, Steven Arsht, an orthopedic surgeon at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, was the first in his family to get a COVID-19 vaccine. As he moved forward in line in January, he found himself thinking of his brother-in-law, Louis Sarrel, who died of the disease…
On a Zoom call last March, Katie Hisert, a pulmonologist, assistant professor and researcher at National Jewish Health in Denver, realized that she was on the verge of a panic attack. She and her critical care colleagues were discussing what they would do should they run out of ventilators for COVID-19 patients. Afterward, Hisert immediately…
In the week leading up to a trip to Mount Rainier last summer, Tara Garland, an emergency medicine physician and avid outdoorswoman, got the same question from three different colleagues: “What do you carry in your first-aid wilderness kit?” It wasn’t the first time Garland, who carries a kit for both herself and others, had…
This has been an exceptionally difficult year for everyone, but especially for doctors working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those whose medical specialties did not bring them into contact with COVID-19 patients have been strained, too, by the emotional and economic stress of the past nine months. “A lot of people are seeing…
Humans have sought to prevent and treat disease since time immemorial. But it’s only relatively recently that scientists and doctors have developed the means to better pinpoint the causes of disease and test the efficacy of remedies. For centuries, physicians and healers around the world often prescribed treatments that not only didn’t help but actually…
Americans can expect major changes to the nation’s approach toward healthcare following President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20. The enactment of those changes, however, is dependent on the balance of power in the Senate, which will be decided by the Georgia runoff elections in January. The Biden administration has extensive plans for scaling up…
