America the fortunate

Posted on May 2, 2021May 2, 2021 by Daniel Casciato and Deval (Reshma) Paranjpe, MD, FACS

As I write this, one quarter of U.S. adults have been fully vaccinated, while half have had at least one dose. If the vaccines offer us significant protection against the assorted variants in world circulation, there is hope that we may entertain a gradual return to pre-pandemic life once the vast majority of the population has been fully vaccinated. Here in the United States, debates about re-opening businesses and schools still rage, but a pervasive sense of “giving up” also is in the air.

“We’re tired of being under restrictions, and some people are vaccinated, and other people don’t care, so let’s just reopen,” is the rallying cry.… Read more

COVID-19: Frequently Asked Questions

Posted on May 2, 2021May 2, 2021 by Allegheny County Health Department

Clinical and public health guidance related to COVID-19 has evolved over the last year. The Allegheny County Health Department provides the following frequently asked questions (FAQs) for physicians on common clinical and public health COVID-19 scenarios.

What is the difference between isolation and quarantine?

Isolation separates people with an infection (e.g., COVID-19) from people who have not been diagnosed with the infection, while quarantine separates and restricts the movement of people who were exposed to COVID-19 but are not yet experiencing signs or symptoms of the infection.

What is a close contact?

For COVID-19, a close contact is anyone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a total of 15 minutes or more.… Read more

Pearls from the ashes

Posted on April 6, 2021March 31, 2021 by Deval (Reshma) Paranjpe, MD, FACS

By Deval (Reshma) Paranjpe, MD, MBA, FACS

The siege has lasted one year now. One year since the pandemic caused our lives to change in ways we’d never imagined. One year since everything shut down and all manner of unthinkable things ensued. One year since we started to see both the best and the worst of human nature brought out by crisis on a daily basis, both in the news and in our everyday life.

We may be done with the pandemic, but the pandemic is not done with us. Some people are living in a strange reality, believing that the pandemic is over for them (and for the rest of the world) because they’ve been vaccinated.… Read more

One year later

Posted on March 8, 2021March 10, 2021 by Mary Lou Marsh

I’ve been the business manager for Weinstein Imaging Associates for 40-plus years. During that time, I’ve seen major changes in technology, healthcare policies/practices, insurances (introduction of HMOs!), not to mention fashion, music and hairstyles. You would think the saying “I’ve just about seen it all” would apply. Sadly, the early months of 2020 and the rapid spread of COVID-19 contradicted that statement.

Everyone in every part of the world had their reality turned upside-down in 2020. And our thriving, independent Radiology practice was no exception. COVID-19 was the pandemic of our lifetime, which would eventually infect more than 20 million and kill 486,000+ Americans (according to the CDC at time of print), and crush our economic way of life.

Unmasking appreciation

Posted on March 8, 2021March 10, 2021 by Amy J. DiPlacido, MD, CWSP

Dr. Andrea Taylor-Cummings said, “People go where they feel welcome, but stay where they feel valued.”

Not all attempts to show appreciation are equal, especially through the eyes of the recipient. A recent online search for “how to show appreciation” led me to YouTube, where a millennial couple talked about how they’ve never felt more appreciated by one another until they started to recognize their so-called “love languages.” I’ve never read Dr. Gary Chapman’s 1992 book on the subject, but watching this video intrigued me enough to take a crash course via Google. Dr. Chapman’s five love languages are words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time and physical touch.

COVID-19 vaccines: Protect yourself, protect your loved ones and help return our world to a better place

Posted on February 8, 2021January 28, 2021 by Raymond E. Pontzer, MD, FACP

So far, more than 20 million Americans have been infected with COVID-19 with greater than 350,000 deaths. Here in Allegheny County, we have had approximately 60,000 confirmed cases and greater than 1,000 deaths. Nearly 3,000 healthcare workers have died from COVID-19 in the United States. In addition to the illness caused by confirmed cases, there have been many more infected individuals who had no testing performed. A recently identified novel COVID-19 strain appears to be much more contagious than previous strains and has been found to be present across the globe, including here in the United States. Proven effective measures to stem the tide of COVID-19, including face masks, social distancing and restricting public gatherings, have been unable so far to contain the pandemic.

Future of telehealth: Boom, or back to business as usual?

Posted on October 26, 2020November 16, 2020 by Mike Cassidy, Esq

What is the future of telehealth? At the inception of the COVID-19 pandemic, in an article entitled “COVID-19 and the Rise of Telemedicine,” the Medical Futurist reported:

“Telemedicine has not had the success it had hoped to achieve.”

Now, just a few months later, telemedicine “might” be a new normal and multiple commentators and organizations, such as the American Medical Association (AMA) and McKinsey & Co., are touting the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) as the long-awaited tipping point for the implementation of telehealth. Note some of the statements below; the underlining is mine.

McKinsey & Co. projected that virtual visits could account for $250 billion dollars of annual healthcare business, or 20% of commercial, Medicare and Medicaid visits.

Pandemicology: Lessons learned (or not)

Posted on October 26, 2020November 16, 2020 by Bruce L. Wilder, MD, MPH, JD

As the days of the COVID-19 pandemic wear on and we see and learn more about its effects on our society and our economy, I have been thinking more and more about what we will, or should, learn from it. I also have thought a great deal about what we have learned (and sadly, in some cases seemingly unlearned) from previous epidemics and pandemics.

Of course, we are continuing to learn a lot about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVD-19, its effects on those who become ill, its demographics, and how it spreads.

We have had a lot of experience with contagious respiratory viruses, most of which began with the so-called influenza pandemic of 1918.

The malady lingers on

Posted on September 14, 2020August 25, 2020 by Deval (Reshma) Paranjpe, MD, FACS

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, reports are starting to emerge which paint a fuller picture of short- and intermediate-term damage to COVID survivors. Long-term studies obviously are years away, but we may increasingly see a pattern of symptoms and signs that indicate that while the patient may be considered recovered, significant ongoing issues remain.

A recent Science article by Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, “From ‘brain fog’ to heart damage, COVID-19’s lingering problems alarm scientists,” reviews some of these effects. Persistent problems include dyspnea, fatigue, tachycardia, joint aches, cognitive difficulties, persistent anosmia and multiorgan dysfunction. There are no large multicenter peer-reviewed studies on survivors published yet, only small studies measuring various outcomes with relatively small numbers of subjects.

Floods, viruses and other disasters: Discussion on inner-city preparedness for catastrophic events

Posted on July 13, 2020June 29, 2020 by William Simmons, MD and Taylor Robinson

Within a few generations of the Emancipation Proclamation, the social and political environment of the South became inhospitable for African Americans. In the three years known as the Great Migration, 1916 to 1919, over half a million African Americans fled the South seeking higher wages and a less hostile environment. During the great Depression in the 1920s, when sharecroppers were turned away from their farms and the Ku Klux Klan was on the rise as a home grown terrorist organization, more than a million African Americans left the South in an attempt to escape the rigid race-based social hierarchy, poverty, lack of educational opportunities and racial violence.