You won’t remember the pandemic. There are some things you should know. — You’ve lived half your life inside this pandemic. But you will have no memory of any of this. How I envy you. It’ll be a long time before you’ll know what a virus is or how much this past year upended our lives. This letter is for when you’re old…

A doctor’s tips — Whenever someone learns I’m an emergency room physician, they reflexively ask ‘What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen?’ I get it — television shows like the eponymous ‘E.R.’ depict my job as full of lust, gore, and foreign objects in unexpected places. I can humor you with stories all day…

Writing every week wasn’t something that came easy to me. This is how I did it. — I don’t consider myself a writer. As an emergency room doctor, I’m more at ease treating heart attacks than putting words on a page. Yet I’ve published a new piece nearly every week for the past six months. When I first started writing on Medium, my intention was to translate…

If you’re fully vaccinated, there’s no indication you need a booster yet. But many could urgently use that dose — here’s why. — Last week, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer held a closed-door meeting with senior U.S. health officials to pitch them on Covid-19 booster shots. Just a few days prior, Pfizer announced they would ask the FDA to expand the emergency authorization for their current two-dose vaccine to include a third, a booster…

I read thousands of articles in the past year. These six are the most important for posterity. — When the pandemic started I spent hours reading every day, alternating between research pre-prints, opinion pieces and long-form articles. As a frontline physician and frequent guest on radio shows and cable news, I wanted to be up to date on every aspect of Covid-19. With how much was published on…

The pandemic shrank our social circles. It’s time to expand them. — “I’ll tell you one thing, I’m sick of this damn Covid thing.” Carl and I had never met before, but on this we immediately found common ground. Carl came out to our family’s cabin in New Hampshire to make some long-overdue repairs. We chatted about the weather and the astronomical…

Academic medical centers in the U.S. didn’t do enough to combat Ebola in West Africa — that cost us when Covid hit. — I only vaguely remember the frenzied activity as they rushed me from the ambulance to the isolation ward. But I vividly recall the nurse trying to start an intravenous line in my left arm. I watched as she missed three times, hitting a nerve on her last attempt. Later I…

It’s been a long time since I saw a Covid patient in the ER, and I couldn’t be happier — I’m an emergency room doctor in New York City, and I haven’t seen a Covid-19 patient in weeks. It feels great having my old job back. In March 2020, Covid flooded our ERs. At first, it was just a dribble — one or two Covid patients per day. But within…

Around the world, many don’t have access to a vaccine. That’s scandalous. — My heart sank when I heard Romeo “Romy” Agtarap died of Covid-19. He had recently retired from nursing after two decades in the emergency room. But when Covid-19 surged into New York City last spring he joined us again on the frontlines. In April 2020, the virus that brought Romy…