Rainy Sunday in Connecticut.  I am doing laundry, lifting weights, cleaning the house, playing chess, listening to a chess instructional video, doing homework from my anti-racism course, and cooking dinner all at the same time.  Too busy to write a blog post. I admit to being nervous about the election on Tuesday, and have been […]

Connecticut saw its COVID positivity rate jump to over 6% last Thursday.  Our seven day average remains 3% for now.  Cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all up.  The flat line we enjoyed this summer has turned decidedly up and threatens to go parabolic. The last three shifts I have worked I have done cardiac arrests.  […]

There is a cartoon hero named Narcania created by the same guy who wrote Lil’Dope Fiend Overdose Prevention Guide.  In the mini comix, Narcania rescues people who have overdosed and gives them new life.  As one character who has been resuscitated remarks, “I don’t know if there is anything worth living for, but at least […]

“That’s not unexpected, but it still wakes you up like a cold shower,” Lamont said about the rising number of positive tests, which suggest that the virus is spreading more quickly. COVID cases have increased steadily in Connecticut since early September.  Nearly every day, the Governor’s response has been, “That’s not unexpected.”   He has often […]

In the summer of 1977, when I was 18, my best friend Brad and I drove 1400 miles crisscrossing the country in an old Oldsmobile Cutlass.  We had no plan other than to see America.  We started off in New England, headed to Washington D.C. and then down through the Blue Ridge, Virginia, North Carolina.  […]

Johns Hopkins University Press is running a sale on public health books, and my new book is in it! Save 30% on Killing Season and other select books with code HPHB when you purchase before 11/6: http://bit.ly/publichtw Killing Season will be published April 6, 2021.

The new American Heart Association Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care guidelines were released this morning. While the AHA does a major update every five years, since they went to online updates a few years back, the changes are not as momentous as they once were. After reading the executive summary, here are the key […]

Lay rescuers should not wait for naloxone to take effect before activating 911 in patients suspected of opioid overdose. Trained EMS responders when treating an opioid overdose patient in suspected cardiac arrest should focus on high quality CPR (compressions plus ventilations) before considering the use of naloxone. These are two recommendations from the American Heart […]

I am on my knees, wearing a yellow decontamination gown that has already torn at the right forearm and left wrist. I listen to rhonchi in the lungs of an obese febrile man, who likely aspirated on the brown emesis he threw up on himself. The apartment is dim, and smells heavily of cigarettes and […]

The Hartford Courant this week noticed what most everyone else around here has– panhandlers are on nearly every corner of big intersections these days. Many carry the standard signs drawn on ripped cardboard “Homeless and Hungry.” Some wear masks, others don’t. Some make eye contact, others look down at their feet. They almost universally say […]