Ive had a few conversations with non-medical folk about taking the vaccine, most recently with the boys I grew up with. Real questions have come up, and they're not stupid questions. The answers are things I learned in med school or residency. We gotta address these. 1) What about long term effects? What if they are worse than getting COVID itself?
A1: the way this vaccine is made is different from the ones we got as children. Its not a killed or weakened live virus. Its a synthetic blueprint to a protein on the outside of Covid. In theory,

Why we need more black men in medicine. I had a patient this week who came in with left leg weakness over the last week. Younger black guy in his 30s. Brain MRI clearly indicates multiple sclerosis. So we all go in during morning rounds to give my man his diagnosis. He has a bit of blank stare as he listens to my attending try to explain what he has. He was told earlier he mightve had a stroke, and now we're telling him he doesnt have a stroke. But he's clearly processing what he does have and just says "nah" to having any questions.