Fact: The date for a return to normalcy keeps getting pushed back. Fact: People are dying. Fact: This will end, eventually. But when? As news cycles continue to broadcast unimaginable content through every possible screen, our minds, bodies and souls are under siege. Words like pandemic, lockdown, and school closure keep coming at us relentlessly. […]
Roughly a week after a March press conference hosted by S.F. Mayor London Breed announcing a regional shelter-in-place order, Matt Willis, Marin County’s public health officer and a Marin native, started to feel like he was coming down with some- thing. With chills and a dry cough, he went back to his San Anselmo home, […]
Many of my patients are women with heart disease. They report that healthcare workers have made them feel guilty when they called 911, since their chest pain was most likely not due to a heart attack. While COVID-19 heightens the need for emergency response, the reticence for some to call for help is heightened by […]
Our world has changed radically in the past six weeks. Suddenly, seeing your doctor quickly switched from an in-person event to a matter of logging into your computer. Telemedicine is now a main source of health care. Telehealth had originally been intended as a way of reaching rural communities with a shortage of doctors. As […]
In the throes of COVID-19, the simple question, “How are you?” has more weight, meaning and consequence than it did just a few months ago. Social media feeds are filled with questions like, “How’s everybody doing?” And the answers are rarely upbeat. At least 316 million Americans are staying home, many are working remotely. Millions are missing […]
My daughter’s life looks practically perfect. No one would ever guess that Emma’s brain tortures her continuously with a looped cacophony of critical, negative, self-loathing thoughts. But, that’s exactly what she has wrestled with since she was 12 and suffered the onset of clinical general anxiety disorder (GAD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Sadly, I didn’t […]
In good times, getting a solid eight hours of shut-eye every night can be a struggle for many people—even if you follow all of the “clean sleep” commandments like keeping your bedroom cool and dark and going to bed at the same time every night. Now, as the global coronavirus pandemic persists, sleep has become more […]
“I have a dread that I carry with me when I go to the doctor, about attitudes toward me,” a colleague recently told me about his fears of going to the emergency room during the COVID-19 crisis. His concern is based on his perception of the doctors’ bias due to his disability. He lives a […]
Whether you’re living in San Francisco, Barcelona or Illinois, people’s lives have never been more similar. We’re sharing common concerns, about the health and safety of our loved ones, about the security of our jobs, about what a post COVID-19 future looks like. And while the new coronavirus is a great unifier, it would be […]
If you’ve been to a CVS, or a Target, or a grocery store or an…any store, anywhere, basically, you’ll notice a complete and utter lack of hand sanitizer. Trying to shop online? No chance. Out of stock. Ever since the pandemic kicked into high gear, people have been extra-committed to hygiene, which means that those […]
