RENÉE BACHER

With COVID-19 infecting hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers, requiring them to stay home for extended periods of time, the pandemic has wreaked havoc on the way medical practices and hospitals operate.

According to a recent American Medical Association survey of more than 15,000 physicians, 25% of female doctors are married to another doctor, as are 16% of male doctors. It's not easy, particularly during a pandemic in which two doctors may double the risk of bringing home SARS-CoV-2, or the one working in a hospital may choose to live in a hotel room. But some say they can't imagine being married to a "civilian," not talking shop with a partner who understands and never takes the demanding hours personally.

When Mary Frey Eaton, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was in her 60s, an ophthalmologist suggested she take flaxseed oil and later added another supplement — PreserVision AREDS — to her daily regimen. Her daughter Susan Eaton says, “Mother lived to be 91 years old and was still reading the paper every day. The majority of her 90-year-old friends had developed macular degeneration and could no longer read.”
So do vitamins and other supplements really help, or did the elder Eaton just get lucky?

With the COVID-19 pandemic curtailing travel and preventing large gatherings, professional otolaryngology and physician societies have had to cancel meetings or quickly take them online. “Replacing meetings virtually is better than doing nothing, but people are anxious to have in-person meetings again. It’s definitely been missed,” said Michael Stewart, MD, vice dean and chairman of the department of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City ...

Dealing with your child's return to campus might feel like a tough assignment, but there are ways to combat the accompanying stress.

Between seeing patients in clinic, performing surgeries, doing hospital rounds, and trying to have a life outside of medicine, physicians have some of the busiest lives. But many also make time to advocate for a variety of causes.

If you have a substance use disorder, staying sober can be a one-day-at-a-time challenge. For some, the coronavirus outbreak has made that even tougher, with routines disrupted, in-person therapy on hold, and, in many cases, less face-to-face time with supportive friends and family. And this is a time when an alcohol and drug dependency can increase the risk of respiratory complications from COVID-19 — already higher than average for older people -— ...

n the coming days and weeks, millions of parents in the United States will be sending their child to college in a pandemic, whether for in-person classes or a virtual hybrid. Few parents have made this decision lightly, of course. And for some it was their child’s decision, not theirs. Separating from kids going to college may be hard enough for some, but the coronavirus crisis has kicked that up many notches, leaving a lot of parents anxious and unsure how to manage their fears

With the 80-hour weekly cap on resident hours implemented in 2003, resident publications in peer-reviewed journals have increased substantially (Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2010;468:2278–2283). But are residents toughing it out on their own when it comes to conducting research, or do training programs now give them relevant instruction in doing productive research, and the confidence that comes with it?

September 2019

A 2015 study of third-year psychiatric residents found that when given an intera...

Waco Ear, Nose & Throat was approved and funded for a federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan through a local bank in the nick of time to help save the practice. Unfortunately, not every private practice has been fortunate enough to obtain funds through the loan program created by the CARES Act passed by Congress in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The CARES Act allotted $349 billion initially, with a second round of $310 billion, to help keep small businesses in the U.S. afloat...

Japanese pediatrician Tomisaku Kawasaki, MD, who identified an inflammatory syndrome that affects children, died on June 5 in Tokyo. He was 95.

Born Feb. 7, 1925, in Tokyo, Dr. Kawasaki graduated from medical school at what is now Chiba University in Chiba, Japan, in 1948 and worked as staff pediatrician at the Red Cross Hospital in suburban Tokyo. It was there in 1961 that he saw his first patient with the disease that would eventually bear his name....

By now we know we should be wearing face masks to protect others from potentially deadly infection when we leave the house. But face masks can be hot, and they can irritate the skin, fog glasses, make it difficult for some to breathe and create a world without smiles. It also can be difficult for people who have hearing loss to communicate when mouths are covered, muffling voices and hiding facial expressions...

Health care workers in COVID-19 hot spots across America are caring for, and often losing, not just patients they had never met before but also friends, family and, in some cases, colleagues with whom they have been fighting medical battles side by side. And that can be both physically and emotionally exhausting.

For some people, feelings of anxiety, uncertainty and sadness have grown persistent during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the outbreak has kept many of us confined to our homes and separated from friends and family — and the world as we know it has been upended.
But how do you know whether what you're experiencing is a normal reaction to a bad situation or clinical depression that should be treated?
"The blues come and go. They don't last for two weeks,” says Vaile Wright, a clinical psychologist ...