Abhilash Desai, MD, Idaho Memory and Aging Centers

Hello and welcome to COVID Meditation – COVID stands for Compassion, Optimism, Vitality and Defiance. COVID Meditation is a combination of four short mantra repetition meditations – each one is one minute long. This meditation will help you activate “the defiant power of the human spirit” (holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s phrase). Let’s remind ourselves that Compassion Optimism Vitality and Defiant attitude are even more contagious than COVID!

By Steven Reames, Executive Director, Ada County Medical Society

Last month, I addressed the issue of anger in the face of the Delta Surge, explaining it is a natural emotional reaction that is better not stuffed but must be processed in a healthy way. Although that resonated with many physicians who wrote back or told me in person, I recognize anger is not everybody’s response. Sometimes our reaction to overwhelm is just becoming dumb and numb.

By Guillermo Guzman, MD, Saint Alphonsus Medical Center, Idaho State Board of Medicine 

The stressors of the day to day activities that fade into routine and become almost imperceptible. The added patient at the end of our shift, followed by a phone call that still needs to be completed. The almost mandatory extra hour to finish your medical records and then on to review laboratory and radiology results waiting in your inbox. Only to start again the next day. And on to the next week. And so on.

By Steven Reames, Executive Director, Ada County Medical Society

As we move towards implementing crisis standards of care for the first time in Ada County’s history, there is a lot of anger out there. It’s no wonder with a projection of 30,000 new COVID cases statewide in a week, an ongoing shortage of healthcare personnel to go around, and a lack of political will. One could think our state emblem might best be changed to hot potatoes.

By Steven Reames, Executive Director, Ada County Medical Society

Throughout this past year, as the medical profession has been overwhelmed with responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous voices have called for transforming medical culture. A couple of examples:

By Steven Reames, Executive Director, Ada County Medical Society

On the first anniversary of natural disasters, it is frequently a time to reflect on the impact of cataclysmic events in our personal and communal lives. After a year of living with COVID-19, it is all too easy to identify the massive changes in the way we live, work, play, and relate to each other. But what then? Fifty years from now, or even 500 years from now, will this be only a year in chronological history for students to memorize and get right on a test? Or is this a test, for us as a people, to get right in this moment of history?

By Steven Reames, Executive Director, Ada County Medical Society

Last month, Ada County Medical Society released a statement supporting Central District Health’s leadership in its handling of the Coronavirus. We affirmed diverse perspectives, respectful dialogue, and peaceful protests, but opposed the intimidating tactics on display that silence or disrupt civil processes. As you may recall, protesters outside the CDH offices and homes of some of its board members Dr. Ted Epperly and Ada County Commissioner Diana Lachiondo interrupted their board meeting. They were considering a public health order which would have required face coverings throughout the district; when the board reconvened the following week, it failed to pass.