If you’re in healthcare, this is probably your worst winter ever. Between the COVIDs, scarce resources, shutdowns, homeschooling, bureaucracy, hoaxers, and checking the in-laws’ rashes online, you must feel cooked. You’re frustrated. Your patients die calling COVID a hoax. People refuse to wear masks. So many loved parents die alone. Bureaucrats don’t prioritize people’s lives.Continue reading “Looking after #1: The healthcare worker’s guide to surviving winter.”
Category Archives: Medical
Surviving the year of rage
Some say 2020 is the year of disasters. Others say it’s the year of change. To me, 2020 is the year of rage. In 2020, rage overtook the world, consuming us and hurling the leftovers against each other. The right is angry with the left. The social distancers are angry with the beach-goers. The maskContinue reading “Surviving the year of rage”
Patients vs. customers
Somewhere in Wuhan, somebody ate undercooked bat soup, and the world as we knew it was over. (Note to self: never have your bat below medium, and avoid bat tartare like the plague.) Kids stayed home. So did their parents. They started talking to each other, instead of watching their phones while rushing from soccerContinue reading “Patients vs. customers”
How Your Mask Is Just Like Your Undies. And how it’s not.
Both masks and underwear exist to contain badness. Neither works 100%, but they’ll curb the worst of the spill. Don’t borrow someone else’s, no matter how cool they look. Keep them on around strangers, unless you’ve both been tested. Cotton breathes better than polyester. If they don’t fit well, you’ll be chaffing. Wear themContinue reading “How Your Mask Is Just Like Your Undies. And how it’s not.”
The bloody mask
My honeymoon with Thailand ended yesterday. We live in a condo in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Signs on every door warn: No Mask, No Entry. Most people comply. Some don’t. I ignore them unless they try to join me in the elevator. If they do, I wave them away. “Not without a mask, please.” Yesterday,Continue reading “The bloody mask”