Tag: covid pandemic

A patient is seen in the intensive care unit for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Thoracic Diseases Hospital of Athens in Greece on November 8, 2020.

Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Importance of Humanism in Medicine

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By John C. Messinger

On March 17, 2020, in the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) released a statement strongly urging medical schools to pause all clinical rotations and patient-facing activities.

While there was a clear necessity to limit student participation as a means of reserving PPE and creating a safe environment for patients and health care providers, restricting medical students from clinical settings has drastically changed their education.

As a first-year medical student removed from training at the time of this announcement, my greatest fear has been that these changes will alter my approach to care for patients.

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Bill of health - $100 bill Ben Franklin wearing mask with economic line chart and bar graph going down, pandemic economic crisis, post pandemic economy

Preparing for the Post-Pandemic Economy

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By Kareem Caryll, J.D.

The end of the COVID-19 pandemic may be in sight, but how do we prepare for a new economic environment once the health crisis is behind us? The negative economic impact of the health crisis cannot be overstated. In 2020, the domestic economy contracted by 3.5%, the largest decline since World War II. During the year, the unemployment rate reached nearly 15% at its peak as Americans lost 22 million jobs between February and April. Recent data shows that the economy, while slightly improved, remains in a perilous state. There are approximately 9.5 million fewer jobs than in February 2020. While the unemployment rate currently sits at 6.2%, experts suggest that the real rate is closer to 9.5% after accounting for, among other things, the more than 4 million workers who have dropped out the labor force. These facts do not exist in isolation. When individuals lose their jobs, the impact is felt in many facets of their lives. A January 28, 2021 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities revealed that nearly 1 in 6 adults in households with children lacked sufficient food. 21% of adult renters report being behind on rent. 35% of adults report difficulty paying for usual household expenses such as car payments, medical expenses, and student loans.

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DUQUE DE CAXIAS,(BRAZIL),MAY,20,2020: doctors take care of patients with covid-19.

The Future of Medicine Post-COVID: Not a Healthy Outlook for Women

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By Laura Dean, Valerie Dobiesz, and Peter Chai

During the COVID-19 pandemic, women health care providers have not only put their health at risk, but also suffered disproportionate professional consequences.

Women comprise 70% of the global and 76% of the US health care workforce, and data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suggest that nearly three-quarters of the COVID-19 cases among health care workers are women. Additionally, pregnant health care workers suffer greater morbidity and mortality from COVID-19, face uncertain risk from medications and vaccines due to exclusion from clinical trials, and experience significant psychological and medical risk managing pregnancy amidst an uncertain pandemic. Returning to work in an era where limited and ill-fitting personal protective equipment (PPE) is available and risk of infection is uncertain is especially challenging to new and lactating mothers seeking to advance their careers in academic medicine.

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Medical staff work in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for COVID-19 patients in University Hospital of Liege in Belgium on May 5th, 2020.

Pandemic Highlights Need for Better Redeployment Planning

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By Cory Hoeferlin

In the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis, physicians in all specialties want to assist their frontline colleagues.

Yet after being removed from critical care environments for countless years, many are no longer comfortable when lives hang in the balance.

Putting aside the impending physician-shortage for a moment, a key issue laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic is not workforce capacity, but capability.

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 06, 2020: A health care professional kneels in protest in New York City as part of the movement, 'White Coats for Black Lives,' during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Scope Creep: Serving Many Roles, Health Care Providers Need a Supporting Cast

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By Christian Rose

During the COVID-19 pandemic, physicians and nurses have found themselves on the frontlines of more than just medical care, advocating for their patients, their families, and themselves. Facing overwhelm and burnout at a scale hitherto unimagined, they continue to fulfill their ethical obligations to their communities and their patients. If they don’t, who will?

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Doctor Holding Cell Phone. Cell phones and other kinds of mobile devices and communications technologies are of increasing importance in the delivery of health care. Photographer Daniel Sone.

Providing Cancer Care in the Age of COVID-19

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By Samyukta Mullangi, Johnetta Blakeley, and Stephen Schleicher

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many challenges to oncology care; an area of medicine that typically involves frequent, in-person patient visits to complete a course of treatment.

In many ways, COVID-19 has served as a stress test for the specialty, and has catalyzed adaptive changes that we hope will make the oncology care, and the health care system in general, more resilient going forward.

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Oxygen mask as part of artificial lungs ventilation machine in surgery room, closeup.

Pandemic Highlights Need for Quality and Equity in End-of-Life Care

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By Elizabeth Clayborne

I was a little less than six months pregnant when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. As an Emergency Physician, I am well aware of additional risks that my job often exposes me to on a daily basis. We frequently face physical and emotional strife from unstable psychiatric patients, critically ill nursing home residents, sexual assault victims, and newly diagnosed cancer patients.

People who work in an emergency department tend to understand what comes with the territory: a lot of hard work, unexpected outcomes, and daily traverses of the human experience, from the best emotions you can imagine, to lowest depths of human despair. This is what accompanies caring for every ailment for people from all walks of life. I actually love this part about my job! I never know what I’m going to see when I walk through the doors.

That said, being a frontline physician during COVID-19 has provided me with a profoundly different lens on the pressures surrounding health care workers. And experiencing this while pregnant was pretty terrifying.

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New York City, New York / USA - May 2 2020: New York City healthcare workers during coronavirus outbreak in America.

Pandemic Threatens Future of Emergency Medical Services

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By Benjamin Podsiadlo

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed persistent, wide-ranging existential threats to effective 911 emergency response.

The EMS (Emergency Medical Services) system, which sits at the intersection of emergency medicine and public safety, is the out-of-hospital component of the acute care health care system. The EMS mission is targeted at identifying, responding, assessing, treating, and entering suddenly ill and injured patients in the community into the health care system.

The EMS system’s viability is entirely dependent upon the capacity of its workforce of EMTs, paramedics, and 911 EMS telecommunicators to respond 24/7/365.

The devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on EMS include: severe damage to workforce sustainability; grossly insufficient logistical resourcing; and further erosion of cohesive system identity.

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Healthcare workers carrying signs protest for improved Covid-19 testing and workplace safety policies outside of UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles,Dec. 9, 2020.

Beyond 20/20: The Post-COVID Future of Health Care

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By Cynthia Orofo

There are two experiences I will never forget as a nurse: the first time I had to withdraw care from a patient and the first day working on a COVID ICU.

Both were unforgiving reminders that the ICU is a demanding place of work that will stress you in every way. But the latter experience was unique for a few particular reasons. Before the end of that first shift, I had overheard several staff members on the floor speak about their fears, thoughts of the unknown, and their version of the “new normal.” As I realized that life would almost certainly not be the same, I developed my own vision of the “new normal” of health care.

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