The blunt truth on why stopping COVID is impossible

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 [eBook]( Now more than ever, it's important to care for clinicians as COVID-19 has changed the landscape of being a provider in health care. While improved communications aren't the key to every problem, they can be part of the solution. [Read eBook to find out more](. As health care providers [distribute COVID-19 vaccines]( here are answers to questions regarding best practices for [vaccine administration](. Get a free copy of [Money Insights for Physicians]( which teaches doctors the proven path to move from high income to high net worth! [Take the F3 Assessment]( and find out where you’re at along the path to financial freedom. There’s an [AI assistant]( that writes notes and orders by listening to your conversations with patients, then populates them directly to your EHR. Less expensive, better quality than a scribe! [Learn more](. --------------------------------------------------------------- KevinMD Plus: Jan 4, 2021 [The blunt truth on why stopping COVID is impossible]( COVID-19 has turned the world on its head. A major problem we have faced since the beginning is that it had already been spreading like wildfire for a few months since the end of 2019 — before most of the world realized that it was time to take action against this respiratory virus. We’ve therefore […] [The COVID-19 vaccine won’t solve major substance use disorder treatment gaps]( As if COVID-19 weren’t bad enough during the pandemic, another public health crisis – substance use disorder (SUD) – has gone from bad to worse, while access to behavioral health services is shrinking. As of September, more than half (52%) of community behavioral health organizations have seen an increase in demand for services, and half […] [Health care organizations: Clean up your house first, then you can tackle racism in patient care]( The new American Medical Association policy recognizing racism as a public health threat and providing an anti-racist approach to equitable care will have no effectiveness unless health care organizations get their own houses in order and actively do anti-racism work in their own institutions. Although I’m not a health care provider, as a health care communicator whose […] [Creativity in medical school and beyond]( On those brisk walks across the hospital, I briefly look over at the instillations from local artists. Those pieces ignite a chain reaction of creative empathy and even critique from both patient and provider alike. In the briefest moment, we mentally collide into the artist’s creation, catching glimpses of their point of view. The result […] [Be careful when using preprint servers for medical research reports]( The coronavirus pandemic posed unprecedented challenges and forced a shift towards an accelerated digital transformation. The COVID-19 public health emergency focused attention on timely dissemination and reporting of research findings, resulting in the rapid growth of preprint platforms. Preprint servers like medRxiv, bioRxiv, ChemRxiv, arXiv, and ResearchSquare received attention for sharing preliminary research during the […] --------------------------------------------------------------- [Thousands of physicians are browsing this job board](. They love its selection of over 12,000 openings across the U.S. [Physicians are finding opportunities they almost missed](. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Can we do better when delivering bad news in trauma?]( On a recent trauma call, we had a busy night, culminating in a horrific motorcycle trauma that came in early in the morning. The patient had devastating injuries and ended up dying. The detectives finally tracked down the patient’s family. I cleaned myself up, put on my white coat and had the family sit down […] [Bottles and pacifiers: advice from a Latinx pediatrician [PODCAST]]( “Growing up in Puerto Rico, ‘babas’ (bottles: biberón/botellas) and ‘bobos’ (pacifiers: chupetes/chupón) were very common among the families and children of the island. I still remember our Abuelita giving us milk in our “babas,” so my younger sister and I were sure to fall asleep better. From the time of our births, to when my […] [Physician burnout during COVID: Bringing ancient practices to modern medicine]( Back in January of 2020, the average physician burnout rate was a staggering 42 percent. However, as COVID cases continue to surge, that statistic is now undoubtedly larger. Physicians are exhausted, both physically and mentally. They’ve watched colleagues suffer extensively or even die as a result of contracting COVID from infected patients. There is not […] [Is there hope for COVID with home visits?]( Health care has been hanging by a thread for some time — in our community and across the nation. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses inherent in an underfunded public health system, a monopolized hospital, and a fractured medical supply chain. At the beginning of this pandemic, I wrote, “Our lives will not be saved by […] [COVID-19 vaccines: Channeling the 7 habits to get from vaccines to vaccinations [PODCAST]]( “As we get excited about vaccine news and results, we need to evaluate our messaging and how we can get to high enough COVID-19 vaccination rates to achieve herd immunity. This requires broad and frequent education on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. It also requires active listening to address concerns so people can […] [Patients don’t need quick diagnoses. They need accurate ones.]( It seemed like an innocuous tweet. It was just a doctor, somewhere on Twitter, declaring that it was important to learn to quickly ascertain if patients were “sick or not sick.” It was sentence; perhaps two. It spoke volumes. He was not suggesting that doctors needed to learn to quickly assess severity; to triage for […] [#ThisIsOurShot to end the pandemic]( If 2020 was the year of the coronavirus pandemic, 2021 has got to be the year of vaccinations. The miracle of modern science, generous funding, and expedited research have led to us having at least three available vaccines to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Pfizer/ BioNtech, Moderna, and most recently, AstraZeneca have produced vaccines that […] [Correctional facilities are not prioritized for COVID vaccines]( Given the COVID-19 pandemic’s ongoing course, it is important to prioritize offering our still limited vaccine supply to individuals with the highest risk of exposure to, and negative outcomes from infection with the virus. While each state is allocating their initial vaccines somewhat differently, for the most part, staff working in hospitals and nursing homes […] [Climate change, cardiac arrest, and the price of inaction [PODCAST]]( “We have to start understanding these as the real costs of climate change. We are paying these costs now. In my state of Oregon, people are going to start getting sick and dying in the next few days of the wildfire smoke choking the air. When they show up to the hospital with a severe […] --------------------------------------------------------------- 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](