articles
Critical Care Doctors Are in Crisis
Scientific American August 9, 2021
As a critical care physician, Kelli Mathew knew her days were spinning in the wrong direction. For one thing, her well of empathy was dry. When unvaccinated people came to her, suffering the effects of COVID, Mathew began snapping back. She had run out of comforting or even neutral things to say. “In my mind, […]
How Designer DNA Is Changing Medicine
Scientific American July 17, 2021
For as long as he could remember, Razel Colón had known pain. It ripped down his neck and back, shot through his legs and traveled on to his feet, often leaving him writhing and incapacitated. He suffered occasional attacks of “acute chest,” in which breathing suddenly becomes difficult. “It felt like an elephant was sitting […]
How the Pandemic Roiled the Foster Care System
Scientific American June 27, 2021
For the first four years of her childhood, Vanessa Brunetta’s family was homeless. Later, her family was rocked by domestic violence to the point that “my older brother and I would spend most nights at a neighbor’s house or locking ourselves in our room,” she says. By age eight, she’d been placed in foster care; in […]
Giving COVID survivors just one dose of the vaccine could help end the pandemic faster
Fortune May 18, 2021
A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine went in for his second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. “It absolutely kicked my butt,” he told me. He spent most of the following day on his back, feeling fog-headed and achy, before things returned to normal about 24 hours after that. That sort of reaction […]
Should I attend a family wedding? The CDC guidance doesn’t help
New York Daily News May 17, 2021
Recently, I received the kind of invitation that many of us have been longing for, to an event the likes of which has been unthinkable for more than a year: the wedding of a beloved niece, and an opportunity to see friends and family. That I, an emergency physician, have hesitated so much in deciding […]
In the fight against COVID, Brazil’s surge won’t stay in Brazil
Fortune April 23, 2021
The helicopter view of the COVID-19 crisis gripping Brazil might, at first glance, look awfully familiar. It includes a botched initial response and the downplaying of its seriousness by those at the top, the undermining of science and vaccination efforts, the crush of patients on overloaded intensive care units, and the promotion of quack “cures” like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, among other missteps. But the […]
The Fast Lane for COVID Testing Has Opened Up in the U.S.
Scientific American April 16, 2021
For a recent flight that required a negative COVID-19 test result, I went through a process so silly and laborious that it got me wondering. First, I booked an appointment at an approved testing center, about a 25-minute drive from my home. Upon arriving, I paid $175 to take a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. […]
The Best Medicine Doesn’t Always Come in a Bottle
Scientific American April 1, 2021
Ed Bidwell lived a nightmare before waking up to a better day. A debilitating brain bleed caused by a burst artery turned his life on a dime. He temporarily lost consciousness. With the left side of his body subsequently weakened and his ability to work compromised, he soon lost his job, and he went into […]
So, What Can People Actually Do after Being Vaccinated?
Scientific American March 10, 2021
The first raft of stories in the wake of the Biden administration’s dramatic acceleration of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the U.S. centered on all the things the newly vaccinated among us can and cannot do, as if we were working off a master list of approved activities. Like so many things associated with this […]
Will COVID wipe out standardized college testing?
Fortune March 2, 2021
For students and colleges alike, the changes wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic have affected virtually every facet of the educational process. It’s tougher to teach. It’s certainly tougher to learn. Many campuses have sat largely empty. And the idea of extracurricular activity has, for all intents, dried up. This is, of course, alarming in its […]
