Hey Doctor Scott ...

  One of the most frustrating times of being a physician, and perhaps of being any human who deals with the problems of another, is when you are unable to figure out why that person is feeling poorly and unable to give them any options that can help them feel better. You feel powerless and useless and in those times often people will look for any lifeline or last ditch effort to give hope to either person that they have some power to make a change, meaningful change that will help them both feel better about their role in the relationship.  I think one such issue that happens in medicine is related to chronic fatigue syndrome, now also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis.  This is a condition that is very poorly understood and for a long time, and even now, is under diagnosed and misdiagnosed, oftentimes because we as physicians have a fear of saying that we do not know why someone is sick and have very limited training on or education about.    A brief look...

In my very new position, I was asked to talk a little bit about how to safely celebrate the 4th of July while maintaining COVID-19 precautions and even got a little bit of a news cameo ! The Fourth of July holiday is once again upon us and even though it is a time to celebrate, we must stay vigilant if we want to keep ourselves Independent from COVID-19. This doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves and celebrate a little over the weekend, we just have to remember our local county guidance and plan a little bit. Gatherings This may not be the best year to get the biggest backyard BBQ going. We should keep our gatherings to groups of 10 people or less, or 3 people or less if someone is older or has a major medical condition. If you’re going to have people over who haven’t been sheltering with you, it’s important to have masks and sanitizer handy. Masks Masks should definitely be worn whenever you go inside a business, including restaurants, because it’s tough to keep your di...

1)  Heyyyy Maskarena   As I and a bunch of other people predicted last week, masks are the new soul patch - everybody wants one but nobody really knows why. One distinction that has come up lately is the different between masks - N95 vs surgical masks and everything else is what I think it usually comes down to.   The N95 mask is the one we are conserving for healthcare personnel.  It filters out 95% of particles over 0.3 microns (coronavirus is supposed to be between 0.2-0.5 microns) BUT it needs to be on properly to do that.  It's tough enough to do that every year we have to go through a retraining process to make sure we can get it fit correctly.  In addition, if you're really worried about droplet exposure, you're also supposed to be wearing goggles or a face shield to keep the particles from getting into your eyes.  So that combination is good for healthcare workers who are actually coming into close contact with someone they have ...

- <Knocking on Northern California redwood> It seems like right now we're in about the best place in the country to be for the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.  So far, it looks like our region started social distancing early enough to have an effect on the speed of transmission of the virus.  New numbers keep coming out every week and it's tough to keep track of what they all mean, especially as it's tough to get good data on things right now given how it's an evolving situation.  It's seeming more and more like a good chunk of people who get COVID-19 (coronavirus) have no symptoms, hearing something in the area of 25-50% of people.  So I guess that's good news, but it can also give you a false sense of security as to whether or not you are safe to be around others. - We don't know how many adults out there are asymptomatic with the virus right now and we also don't really know how easily they can spread it.  It does spread much more...

First, let me just say how impressed I've been with how everybody has been acting.  That outpouring of support I've seen from people being concerned about their close friends and family members, the general public, and even myself and my family, has been surprising and comforting.   Second, just know that I'm here for any questions that pop up.  I'm not always at the computer anymore as they have us working in a lot of different spots right now and I also run camp at home for the kids at least once a week, but will do my best to keep getting back to you when things come up. This has been a tough thing to fully comprehend, even for me.  The practicalities it boils down to as I understand it are: - we have this new very contagious virus that can cause severe disease and death in a lot of people because it's brand new and nobody has pre-existing immunity to it like they do many strains of influenza - we also are having epidemic levels of influenza a...