Clinical

Rohit Abraham, MD, MPH Rohit Abraham, MD, MPH (1 Posts)

Resident Physician Contributing Writer

Boston University Medical Center


Rohit Abraham is a PGY-1 resident in combined Family Medicine & Psychiatry. He is training as a Copello Fellow in health advocacy through Doctors For America. His interests include health policy and care delivery innovations for integrating primary care and behavioral health for urban underserved populations, with an intersectional focus on substance use disorders.




A Tale of Three Continents: A Resident Physician Perspective on the Pandemic

“The United States reports first death from COVID-19 in Washington State.” It was the end of February as I glanced over this news alert. For the past month, my inbox was flooded with emails regarding the COVID-19 outbreak. I saw my patients as usual throughout the day, albeit washing my hands and using hand sanitizers more often.

Can Empathy Be Taught, or Is It Innate?

In medical school, I was taught to sit at eye level when speaking to patients, ask how they would prefer to be addressed, and ask open-ended questions to allow them to express themselves. I learned to interject with “That must be really difficult for you,” or “I can only imagine how that makes you feel,” as a way to show empathy and foster better connection with patients.

Facing the Inevitable: A Resident Physician’s Perspective on the COVID-19 Pandemic

As I check in on my patients each morning, I wonder if some will unexpectedly decompensate and die over the coming weeks. I think about myself and my co-residents who are in the hospital all day swabbing patients for COVID-19 without adequate personal protective equipment. Many of my co-residents are on home isolation as a result of this exposure, waiting for their test results and praying that our government will step up and fund more mask production, or civilians will return the N95s they’ve hoarded, or the set of a TV medical drama will donate their props to us.

Connecting Virtually: One Resident Physician’s COVID-19 Week

It was a beautiful late winter Sunday, and my husband and I decided to drive to Plum Island, in the quaint sea town of Newburyport just north of Boston, for some bird-watching and ocean views. I wondered how my sister-in-law was doing — her wedding was scheduled in just seven days, and she and her fiancé had already been faced with tough decisions because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Priya Gearin, MD Priya Gearin, MD (1 Posts)

Resident Physician Contributing Writer

Harvard South Shore


Priya Gearin is a second-year psychiatry resident at Harvard South Shore in Massachusetts. Originally from the Midwest, she attended medical school at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She plans to pursue a career in child and adolescent psychiatry.