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Category: May 2020

It goes without saying that the pandemic has impacted all of us, placing some of us on the front lines, halting our practices, adjusting our home lives, and more. For this month’s edition, we asked our contributors to write about how they were coping with the current crisis, both professionally and personally.

Pandemic Lessons

By John M. Erickson, MD It is difficult to comprehend the vast amount of human suffering caused by SARS-CoV-2. As I type these words, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused illness in almost 2 million Americans and over 100,000 deaths. Over 40 million people in the United States have now applied for unemployment benefits due to […]

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Embracing the New Normal

By Orrin I. Franko, MD What if a post-COVID world is actually better than “returning to normal”? As physicians, we routinely push beyond our routines and comfort zone when faced with new information, typically in the form of peer-reviewed studies contradicting long-held beliefs. As surgeons, we often find ourselves in a position to improvise intra-operatively, only to discover […]

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Pandemics Make for Most Confining Chains: Part 1

By Thomas G. Stackhouse, MD                          April 9, 2020 Deserted path from town to home todayLeads me across the bridge over the brook.I watch this creek to see if trout display.This sport requires time and stealth to hook. And there it is, a dorsal fin at last.The trout pursues the fly that marks the rise.It […]

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April 9: NYC Letters from the ICU

By Andrew D. Thomas, MD April 9, 2020 Dear Friends and Family, I thought to send some letters home via e-mail for those who have requested word from the ground in New York, as well as for anyone who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when I was filling up the address line. […]

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Searching for Meaning

By Jonathan Shearin, MD Today is Saturday, April 11, 2020, and as I look outside things have eerily changed here in Northern New Jersey.  The arrival of the Coronavirus has changed life as it was.  Every day when I peruse the WSJ, the majority of what I see is that the death toll continues to […]

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Ready to Return to the “Old Normal”

By Warren C. Hammert, MD Today is Sunday, April 12.  It is remarkable how life has changed over the last month.  At the University of Rochester, in Rochester, NY, we are now 4 weeks into the “shutdown.” We are only performing urgent and emergent surgery and seeing “needed” patients in the office. Trauma has been slower […]

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April 12: NYC Letters from the ICU

By Andrew D. Thomas, MD April 12, 2020 It would be reasonable, but perhaps not correct, to think that this has not been a patient I will call Joshua Klinner’s favorite Passover. He is 39 years old, married, and the father of 7 with the 80’s metal band haircut of those who fear God in […]

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April 13: NYC Letters from the ICU

By Andrew D. Thomas, MD April 13, 2020 Friends,  Thank you all for your kind words of support. It means a lot. It has been a couple of days of watching, a day on a unit with the stable and the well, a day in the books uncovering so many forgotten things (anion gap?). Then, […]

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Physician Leadership is Essential

By Stephen Kennedy, MD, FRCSC Today is 4/15/2020. In Washington State, we are 10 days following our peak resource use on 4/5/2020, and we are cautiously optimistic that our hand surgeons will not be called to the ER or the ICU, and that we may be able to resume some elective surgery in our semi-urgent […]

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