COVID Fatigue

Anesthesia alert! This overhead call alerting pending intubation can be heard bellowing throughout the hallways of my medical center several times throughout the day and is seemingly the soundtrack of COVID-19. My typical routine is to pause, make sure it’s not sounding the alarm to my patient’s room, and then continue with my workday. It … Read more

Smallpox to COVID-19: We’ve come a long way!

The history of humankind has never witnessed an infectious agent deadlier than Smallpox. It is thought to have first appeared in Asia or Africa thousands of years ago, before spreading to the rest of the world. This virulent disease was causing hundreds of thousands of deaths each year during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries … Read more

COVID-19: Healthcare Workers vs The Vaccine

The mid-December rollout of two FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines coincided with a surge in US infections, as we surpassed 21 million cases and 300k deaths. Amidst the hope for a recovery from the virus, that has captivated the world for the past 10 months, the vaccine rollout was met with stiff resistance from many Americans. Of … Read more

The Inequity of the COVID19 Vaccine Distribution: The rich countries hoard vaccines while the poor countries struggle to get them

Last week at Cedars-Sinai, we received an email asking its employees interested in getting the vaccine against COVID19. I was very excited about this since it means a lot of things at once. The development of safe mRNA vaccines in a short period shows how much technology has advanced and highlights the importance of working … Read more

COVID-19 Vaccine: What We Need To Know

While we are living in the third peak of COVID-19 pandemic, we have been delighted to hear about the recent food and drug administration (FDA) approval of the COVID-19 vaccine, after trials involving hundreds or more of patients showed the vaccine safety and efficacy [1,2]. However, the COVID-19 vaccine is associated with some side effects, … Read more

COVID-19 and Historical Distrust

As a member of the AHA FIT programming subcommittee, I could not have been more excited about the upcoming scientific sessions meeting. The planning for this meeting began many months in advance with lots of zoom sessions, emails, and organizing to help lay the groundwork for a successful event. As a new member of the … Read more

Gratitude on Our Worst Days

My dad desperately tried to get a hold of me on the morning of December 1, 2020 but for some reason, I hadn’t seen that he called me and so I found out my aunt, Dr. Somaya Saad Zaghloul, succumbed to COVID-19 via my mom and aunt’s medical school classmate on Facebook Messenger. Exactly what … Read more

#AHA20 and#COVID-19: Late-breaking science insights from the AHA COVID-19 registry

The American Heart Association (AHA) COVID-19 registry, leveraging the existing AHA Get With The Guideline (GWTG) platform, was developed to better understand hospital outcomes and adverse cardiovascular complications for patients with COVID-19. The registry was formulated to accelerate the pace of COVID-19 research and quality improvement, where granular data were collected and analyzed at an … Read more