The medical profession is considered to be a noble one. The practice of medicine is capable of rendering noble service to humanity provided due care, sincerity, efficiency, and professional skill is observed by the doctors. However, today, the doctor/patient relationship has almost diminished its fiduciary character and has become more formal and structured. Doctors are no longer regarded as infallible

The public needs to be aware of the deleterious effects of SUD on COVID-19 prognosis. I am a primary care doctor who has recovered from addiction. These two experiences offer me a perspective of how these two epidemics — COVID-19 and opioid addiction — can impact and worsen each other. Two great epidemics of our generation are intersecting in ways that

A Review of the Science When I first heard about hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a treatment for COVID-19, I was excited. Wouldn’t it be great if we have a robust treatment for this disease? Unfortunately, it didn’t pan out. Hydroxychloroquine has been tested more than any other potential COVID-19 drug but has fallen short of expectations. HCQ can neither prevent nor

A COVID-19 vaccine is on the imminent horizon. It is considered the key to lifting social-distancing measures, reopening schools, markets, and events around the globe. Vaccination is key to preventing disease and has been a major advance in public health to eradicate epidemics like smallpox or polio. Vaccines work by mimicking an infectious agent, and by doing so, train our

It’s the middle of the summer, and the coronavirus has not gone away. When the pandemic first began, we hoped that there’d be a lull during the summer, with the heat knocking it out, but this hasn’t happened. Arguments have also become part of the daily discourse, with people debating over case counts and death tolls, how the trends should

We’re all familiar with ‘flattening the curve,’ the idea that shutting down large aspects of society and creating social distancing will slow the spread of the disease – the net effect is to not overwhelm the medical system. We saw what happened in Italy – their healthcare system overwhelmed, ventilator shortages, and people dying while awaiting care. In the US,