Op-Ed: The pandemic, Hurricane Ian and me — a doctor whose friends say I have PTSD (via latimesopinion)
Survivors of Hurricane Ian face a long emotional road to recover from one of the most damaging storms to hit the U.S. mainland.Without it I could never function as an emergency department physician. People close to me think I have PTSD from 2½ years of dealing with COVID, and they are probably right.
I live a bifurcated life, flying back and forth, practicing at UCLA and living part time in Key West, where I take care of a home in a place so beautiful that I refer to it as a saltwater Yosemite. But world capital Los Angeles seduces with better weather — spilled across a diverse landscape like champagne on a rumpled satin bed.
People often ask how I reconcile living in liberal L.A. and crazy-pants Florida. I tell them that the local newspapers cover the same issues: lack of affordable housing for essential workers and families, increasing crime and violence, homelessness, corruption and ineffective local government.
Ian has humbled Florida, and now there will be plenty of fraught political talk, a familiar echo of recent hard conversations. We doctors were humbled by the pandemic. We fumbled communicating what we knew and did not know, giving the crazy theories and outright lies a chance to dominate and dilute good advice. People died because of it. We are still fighting that fight, despite great vaccines and treatments that work on patients from both sides of the political divide.
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