Emergency Medicine-Critical Care physician with interests in mechanical ventilation, pulmonary hypertension, and critical care transport.
Jan 14, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
The findings of this excellent study highlight how incomplete or misinterpreted data can be worse than no data. Early in COVID, rumors and assumptions were flying. THREAD 🧵 jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman…
Years of solid literature on management of ARDS were dismissed. Adages such as “it’s a new disease, it needs new treatments” were thrown around. People postulated that it was a hemoglobinopathy, HAPE, “happy hypoxemics.” People stated that most intubated with COVID would die.
Jun 24, 2021 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
There’s someone in my life I love very much. He is a doctor. And, he is an alcoholic.
That combination is not surprising. Numerous studies have shown that 10-15% of physicians struggle with substance use disorders at some point in their careers. For nurses, some reports suggest nearly 20%. What is noteworthy, however, is the ongoing stigma.
Jan 30, 2021 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
I Applied for Something and Didn't Get It: A thread
We've all heard the phrases “History is written by the winners.” “To the victor go the spoils.”
For all we talk about the value of trying, often, what we truly value is winning.
This is no less true in the field of medicine - especially academic medicine.
In academic medicine, people tout their successes while often downplaying other tries. People don't discuss many of their efforts, because it is considered embarrassing to try and not succeed.
Apr 13, 2020 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
Ok, I have to say something, especially as I keep getting pulled into in these posts. COVID-19 causes ARDS. I keep hearing the refrain that it is not ARDS because “the compliance is normal.”
Yet, I have not seen a single person proclaiming this share their institution’s average compliance (much less the n from which it was calculated.) They go back to Dr. Gattinoni’s letter to the editor, reviewing their experience with 16 patients.
Jul 3, 2019 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
5 years ago today, I woke feeling fine, then quickly developed malaise. An hour later, I started to rigor. I know rigors are bad, but I thought (hoped?) it was viral. I developed horrible, diffuse abd pain, vomiting, and relentless rigors. I had no idea what was going on. 1/18
Too embarrassed to go to the ED, in case it was “just gastroenteritis,” I stayed in bed, taking ibuprofen and sipping water as I could. After 3 days, I asked my husband, also an intensivist, to take me to the ED. We went to his hospital, not mine. 2/18
