By Daniela Vargas

As a public health nurse, I work in reproductive justice, prenatal and postpartum care at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in San Francisco. I am aware that my job comes with a high responsibility as I am assessing for social and structural determinants of health as women begin their prenatal care. In the wake of COVID-19, my work has become more critical as basic needs like food, shelter, baby supplies, legal support, mental health and safety are now even higher for Latina mothers than ever before. The barriers in accessing healthcare, food and shelter that were there for Latinx patients prior to COVID-19 became even wider gaps when “Stay at Home” or “Shelter In Place” policies were first enacted in the City of San Francisco along with eight Bay Area counties even before the State of California and other states followed.Read More »

by Hedy Wald

Civilization

No longer as we knew it

Rainfall hits dry groundRead More »

By Michael Bertenthal

As a kid, I was a devoted soccer goalkeeper.  I lived for the opportunity to step in front of an oncoming shot to protect the net.  I loved the action of diving to make a save, getting my knees skinned and uniform muddied, and occasionally colliding with oncoming players.Read More »

By Amy Blair

With each passing 24 hours, my roles of physician and physician educator and mother (and human of the planet Earth) have been taxed in complex ways. The problem-solving demands are intense and the solutions often feeble, weakened by uncertainty, if not paralyzed. It feels as if the rug were pulled out from under my stable pillar of work-life balance and I teeter and totter as the emails, announcements, protocols, and crash courses in new technologies try to blow me over each day. It is a new flavor of exhausting. A sympathetic overload (as in autonomic nervous system).Read More »

By Elizabeth Southworth

“So what’s the plan for the students” asked my attending during morning rounds on Monday March 16^th. We were discussing the many changes that had already occurred over the past several days; the rooms in the Surgical ICU that had been sequestered for possible corona virus patients, the restrictions on visitors to the hospital, and the impending decision regarding 3^rd and 4^th year medical students on clinical rotations. Moments later the email came in – “All M3 and M4 students will immediately stop participating in their clinical clerkships or those electives that involve patient contact”. With those words, my 4^th year of medical school came dramatically to a halt.Read More »

If I do not survive Covid

Please note the hopes we shaped before

The concerts, hikes and family feasts

Still on schedule, still in store.Read More »

By Maha Mahdavinia

It started almost from the moment my son was born, after I held that precious little breathing miracle of life in my arms and he stopped crying right away. I was filled with joy and love, as if beautiful, peaceful music was playing in my ears. I wanted to hold him all the time and never leave him. Then I remembered: My maternity leave was only six weeks. All of a sudden, the music stopped. It was replaced by a gnawing pain in my belly. Not from the unexpected ruptures of birth — I couldn’t care about those less at that moment. The pain came from guilt. In six weeks I would have to leave my baby every day, from very early in the morning until six or seven at night, when I came back from the hospital. I was a medical resident, and my work hours were long and uncompromising. As I sat in the recovery room of the maternity ward, my mind turned from awe and wonder to anguish and doubt. What was I thinking having a baby? I was so busy with work, and my job was very stressful. Surely I wouldn’t be a good mother.Read More »

By Eran Magen

You open yourself up to the pain of others, in order to be a comforting presence in the middle of a terrible experience. It helps them, and it drains you. It is exhausting to experience so much secondhand suffering. Over time, it sucks the color out of your own life, leaves you depleted, less able to connect with the next person and to enjoy your own life.Read More »

By Rachael D’Auria

The hierarchy in medicine, dark humor used to cope with difficult patients, and embarrassment of not knowing answers to endless questions being thrown your way are some of the many horror stories students above me have attempted to prepare me for. However, no amount of preparation could prepare me for witnessing my first death.Read More »

by Anu Antony

I am a plastic surgeon, a profession that involves understanding women’s aspirations not only in the corporeal sense, but also being cognizant and mindful of their psyche – the inner thoughts and feelings that drive them to choose plastic surgery.Read More »