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Paul Gross

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November More Voices: Choosing

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Dear Pulse readers,

Our November More Voices theme is Choosing.

As I write this, two days before Election Day, our nation is about to do some choosing of its own. And like many choices we turn over in our minds, the final outcome will not be 100 percent on either side of the scale.

In health care, decisions need to be made all the time. As a physician, I choose whether or not to recommend a test or treatment. I choose which medication to propose to a patient.

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Editor’s Invitation: Fatigue

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Dear Pulse readers,
Our More Voices theme this month is Fatigue.
Many are feeling fatigued these days. Fatigued by grief, by isolation and by worry brought on by COVID-19, a murderous guest that arrived in January and is still among us.
Fatigued every time an unarmed Black man is killed by police. “I’m weary,” a friend wrote to me shortly after George Floyd’s murder, “Simply weary. In every sense, spiritually, physically, emotionally…”

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Editor’s Invitation: Uncertainty

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Dear Pulse readers,

I think it’s fair to say that we’re living in uncertain times.

A pandemic, urgent calls for racial justice and an election year all cry for our attention against a backdrop of global warming. The stakes are high. The outcomes are still unknown.

At the same time, in our personal lives, we need to make choices based on the information at hand. It’s not always easy.

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An Editor’s Invitation: Racism

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It feels as if our nation is bleeding.
Bleeding from the death of 100,000 COVID-19 victims.
And bleeding from the recent reminders that racism is not only alive and well in this great land of ours, its consequences are deadly. Racism is killing us through illness, through police violence, through mass incarceration and through the myriad ways that children and adults are given or denied opportunities and second chances, based upon skin color.

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An Editor’s Invitation: COVID-19, Chapter 2

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This month’s More Voices theme is COVID-19, Chapter 2. Coronavirus is still very much with us, affecting us in ways we couldn’t have imagined a few months ago.
I’ve been doing telemedicine these past weeks. I’ve had the privilege of accompanying, by phone, a number of my patients who’ve been doing battle with the virus at home–and to everyone’s great relief, most of them have done well.

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An Editor’s Invitation: COVID-19

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April’s More Voices theme is COVID-19.

What else could it be?

I hope that you’ll take a few moments to send us a short first-person piece on how COVID-19, a term that was utterly foreign to us just a few weeks ago, has impacted you.
Here’s how it’s changed my workplace: As of yesterday, my hospital in the Bronx had about 500 patients admitted with the COVID-19 diagnosis. Over sixty of those were in the ICU.

An Editor’s Invitation: COVID-19 Read More »

An Editor’s Invitation: Aging

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It’s recently come to my attention that I am aging.
I used to find it easy to ignore this particular phenomenon, but as the decades have passed, as my two daughters have now reached their mid- and late-twenties, and as my morning body becomes increasingly creaky, I find this reality staring me in the face–sometimes literally, as I look in the mirror.
The most disconcerting aspect of this aging business: the vanishing names.

An Editor’s Invitation: Aging Read More »

An Editor’s Invitation: Turning Over a New Leaf

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At one time or other, we’d all like to turn over a new leaf.

Which leaf would you choose right now, in 2020, and which have you chosen in the past?

For now, I would choose the leaf that has me feeling bad whenever I run late seeing patients–which is always–because I haven’t figured out how to keep a visit within the 20-minute slot that’s been allotted.

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An Editor’s Invitation: My Aching Back

Leave a Comment / My Aching Back /
Back pain is as common as rain. It’s one of the most frequent concerns that patients bring to me as a family physician.
And I can identify with that pain–at least a little bit.
I had back pain as a teenager. I remember going to see a doctor about it. She examined me, took a pointless X-ray and then offered me something priceless: reassurance. “You’re a muscular guy,” she said, even though I weighed a scrawny 120 pounds.

An Editor’s Invitation: My Aching Back Read More »

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