Miki Chase // On Wednesday, October 7th, 2020, an unnamed Jain woman in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India, died on her 64th birthday. Local news reported that she had recently been discharged from a private hospital, having recovered from coronavirus and tested negative following treatment for Covid-19. A doctor at the hospital, however, who pointed out that she had…
Category: Covid-19 Special Issue
Is Zoom the sole source of fatigue?
Amala Poli // We have all heard about Zoom fatigue; most of us are perhaps experiencing it on an everyday basis. The literature on combating Zoom fatigue continues to abound, with new perspectives and ideas in each article. [1] [2] However, what can we think of the potent combination of research and academic work when…
Reflections from a first-year doctor in the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City
Mona Fayad and Michelle Lee // We were doctors in the first inpatient COVID-19 unit formed at Mount Sinai West Hospital. At the time, we were undergoing our internship year, which is the first year we practice as physicians after graduating medical school. Needless to say, we were thrown into the fire when COVID-19 hit…
Fighting a Pandemic: Camus’s “The Plague” and the Physician’s Struggle to Treat in the COVID-19 Outbreak
James Belarde// “To write prescriptions is easy, but to come to an understanding with people is hard.” -Franz Kafka, in “A Country Doctor” On January 30th, 1962, three girls at a boarding school in the village of Kashasha, Tanzania (then known as Tanganyika) started to laugh uncontrollably. Though efforts were made to restrain the unusual…
Why Hoard Toilet Paper? Dirt and Disorder in the 21st Century
Sarah L. Berry // “Of all dangers, those allied to pestilence, by being mysterious and unseen, are the most formidable.” — Charles Brockden Brown, Arthur Mervyn, Chapter 28. Contagion breeds panic, as the early American novelist Charles Brockden Brown pointed out in Arthur Mervyn, or Memoirs of the Year 1793, a fictional chronicle of the…
Feeling Remote: COVID-19 in an Isolated State
Bríd Phillips // For those of you who have never had to wonder about Western Australia (WA) or indeed Australia itself beyond the beautiful beaches, kangaroos, and Crocodile Dundee, here are a few facts to help you put the country and its people into context. The population of Australia sits just under 26 million, and…
Coronashame
Dr. Brian J. Troth // In my last contribution to Synapsis, I wrote about what it means to be responsible in times of epidemic and pandemics. As the weeks have passed and tensions run higher surrounding the uncertainties that face all people around the world, it’s clear that making a responsible decision is not merely…
“Without a patient for a text”: Medical Education in the Age of COVID
Steve Server // “The Hospital is the only proper College in which to rear a true disciple of Aesculapius” Dr. John Abernethy It had been a strange few days. I had been pulled from my original team in general neurology to join the stroke service for the sake of “social distancing.” The neurology work room—which…
Who Qualifies for Patient Care During COVID-19?
Emilie Egger // During the COVID-19 pandemic, health care routines have shifted dramatically. Ill patients are dying without their loved ones and few patients are allowed advocates in hospitals or doctor’s offices; COVID patients are allowed none. Less dramatic but still significant: primary care has been moved online and elective procedures postponed indefinitely. The crisis…
Pathogenesis: A Visual Diary of COVID-19
Jac Saorsa, Artist-in-Residence // All images created for this special issue by Jac Saorsa, Synapsis Artist-in-Residence. Copyright Jac Saorsa, 2020.
