Stop calling health care workers heroes and do something to help them

Here are the stories you missed on KevinMD. Thank you for your continuing readership. --------------------------------------------------------------- Here are the stories you missed on [KevinMD](. Thank you for your continuing readership. --------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsors [Deliver clinical information to care teams when and where it matters most](. Watch this on-demand webinar to learn how your organization can improve crisis management and make care collaboration easier with [smarter, faster, clinical communications](. As you make plans to [reopen your medical practice during COVID-19]( consider following these 10 recommendations to [keep patients and office staff safe](. [With hundreds of telehealth solutions on the market]( and with a wide range of capabilities, how can you move quickly to implement a HIPAA-compliant solution for your practice? Plan your telehealth strategy by [downloading our eGuide](. [Tax planning for physicians]( updated with recent COVID-19 changes. Learn how to save taxes and keep more of what you make by registering for [this month’s webinars]( Make the Most of Your Home Office and Maximize Your C Corporation Fringe Benefits. --------------------------------------------------------------- KevinMD Plus: May 14, 2020 [Stop calling health care workers heroes and do something to help them]( The narrative that paints health care workers as “heroes” makes me uncomfortable. I may not have a right to an opinion as I am third-string back up not currently working in an overwhelmed ER or ICU. I also feel uneasy about the sea of gratitude and cheers of support, though I know they are uplifting […] [Emergency psychiatry during COVID-19]( The reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic in the comprehensive psychiatric emergency program (CPEP) began insidiously, with an initial sense of unease. Patients are brought into CPEP when they pose a danger to themselves or others. Often they are brought by police, but occasionally they come on their own or with concerned family members. CPEP is […] [Dissent in the time of COVID-19]( I’m a dissenter from way back. Perhaps it’s my red hair and nearly 6-foot frame that made me always feel different. I never quite fit the mold as a good Southern girl. I’m too loud, too assertive, too much a leader. I struggled with some of the belief systems around me, so I majored in […] [Kudos to the new breed of physicians]( I became interested in medicine in my second year of college at Baylor University. I lived in the old Brooks Hall, which was built with large suites and communal bathrooms, and formerly used as military housing. Six of my suite-mates were pre-med and had doctors for either fathers or mothers. They all spoke of the […] [Comparing the preparedness of hurricanes to pandemics]( As I stand in line at a Tampa Lowe’s today in the middle of a global pandemic, I cannot help but note the vast differences in people’s behavior around me. There is a complete dichotomy in the ways in which individuals are responding to COVID-19. Some customers who err on the side of safety are […] [A vaccine alone will not be enough to recover from the impact of COVID-19: Emotional antibodies against it are needed as well]( I was seven years old when I first got my heart broken. I was swiftly rebuffed by my second-grade crush, Brett who, upon getting gently pecked on the cheek by me one afternoon following recess, grimaced and began aggressively wiping off the invisible remnants of the kiss with the palms of both his hands, swiping […] [An oath I cannot keep]( This week I will be taking the physician’s oath. I am a person who only makes promises I can keep. Thus, I am struggling with committing myself to certain parts of the oath. Reflecting over the last four years of medical school, I can say with certainty that I hated my medical school experience. I […] [My professional life battling an RNA virus]( I feel like I am reliving a bad dream. The race to find a treatment and/or cure to SARS-CoV-2 is reminiscent of decades of practicing gastroenterology while hepatitis C roamed the hospital wards as a death sentence for many. I found myself recently recalling a patient whose story ends with science finding a cure. As […] [Enduring the pandemic: How to support your friend on the frontlines]( Troubled by the volume of patients dying before they could even be taken out of ambulances, a New York emergency physician recently ended her own life. Are we all just vital statistics, waiting to be calculated? COVID-19 has infected and killed more than 56,000 Americans. We must remember that every single one of these deaths […] [Medical care is being rationed, but not be in the way you think]( As the pandemic loomed, there was widespread concern about running out of crucial medical resources, such as mechanical ventilators. We watched as the crisis escalated in Italy and elsewhere, where hospitals seemed overwhelmed. We prepared for the surge. Hospitals, industry, and government clamored to secure both ventilators and other valuable resources such as personal protective […] [Take a moment to pause and step outside of yourself]( When I was a child, I used to sometimes close my eyes and try to convince myself that I was someplace else. I would lie on the carpet of our living room, block out the sights and sounds and smells around me, and imagine that I was lying on the floor of my grandmother’s flat […] [Deploring racism isn’t enough: Addressing white privilege in medical school]( If you ask a group of medical students to raise their hands if they are, in fact, racist, I’d venture to guess that not a single hand would shoot up. And I don’t think they would be lying. I am sure that no student believes that he, she, or they are a bigot. Many of […] [We must protect the most precious scarce resource required for the next phase of the pandemic]( “Good news! You have antibodies, so you’re immune to COVID-19.” How relieved would we be to hear that? I could move throughout my place of work, or my grocery store, with added security. I would muse about a vetted cohort of immune providers to care for patients with COVID-19. PPE could be conserved so that […] [How social distancing affects vulnerable nursing home residents]( On a cold evening in early March, my grandpa and I queued outside a nursing home in rural California. He pulled an insulated lunchbox, filled with hot chai and pureed rotis, to his chest and sighed. There are at least eight families in front of us, and if we don’t move fast, my grandma will […] [Everyone agrees nurses are heroes. Why aren’t we treating them that way?]( It’s been said that history doesn’t repeat, but it does often rhyme. And as we’re learning during COVID-19, lessons from the past can be a guide to help us navigate a modern pandemic — if we listen to the rhythm of history. For a little more than two years in the middle of the 19th […] [What do you want from health care after COVID?]( In the last six weeks or so, the practice of medicine has been turned topsy-turvy by the COVID pandemic. Those weeks seem like an eternity. We have been so consumed with testing and treatment coronavirus, flattening the curve, and figuring out how to wear a mask without having our glasses fog up, that it’s hard […] --------------------------------------------------------------- If a friend sent you this email and you want to subscribe, go to [KevinMD](. --------------------------------------------------------------- 345 Hudson Street New York NY 10014 USA [Unsubscribe]( | [Change Subscriber Options](