As an end-of-life physician, I know being with a loved one during their final moments is a deeply personal and emotional memory. This has been changed by COVID-19. Since the onset throughout the country, patients have passed away without family members. It is inhumane, and a horror story. Knowing of...

Santa Clarita – Ready and Resilient As we move further into these unprecedented and uncharted times, I’ve had people ask how the City prepares for such occasions and how we ensure that Santa Clarita will be resilient. The City Council’s mantra has long been, “The decisions we make during...

Some states have decided upon “reopening,” allowing the return of citizens to past freedoms. Politicians have accepted the cries of constituents despite increasing statistics of coronavirus cases and deaths. As a physician, statistics allow me to decide whether a patient is a candidate for surgery....

In his May message, Santa Clarita Mayor Cameron Smyth explains why rules sometimes differ between the state, county and city, and urges residents to get their news from local Santa Clarita media outlets. There’s never been a time when information was changing so quickly, when restrictions were being...

If you live in California and serve on a city council, county board, commission or nonprofit organization especially where taxpayer money is doled out, transparency is mandatory. Generally, there are two laws these bodies adhere to: the Brown Act and the Bagley-Keene Act. They guarantee the public a...

The statistics are coming in, and the trend is, people of color in our country are affected disproportionally by the coronavirus. Is this viral prejudice? Of course not. It does say economic background and lack of healthcare opportunity might be playing a role. “Might?” Of course they are. This pandemic...

All of us are eager to go back to our favorite local businesses, reunite with friends and family, and return to some sense of normalcy. I’m committed to equip Los Angeles County with the tools we need to reach these goals. Our Board of Supervisors passed a Roadmap to Economic Recovery this week that...

My recently discharged patient was on a ventilator in the hospital yet thankfully was found to be coronavirus-negative. Typically, at home she is bedridden but not on many medications. Her drugs are expensive, so the family receives them from a mail-order pharmacy at a reasonable monthly fee. That pharmacy...

The Greatest Generation brought prosperity to our doorstep. Unfortunately, these same older adults statistically have a higher coronavirus mortality rate than the general population. Therefore, as social isolation and separation ebbs, the last group to be freed will be seniors. Some in this population...

I had to do a house call. A patient called, complaining of hand and wrist pain. She had open-heart surgery several months before, but our phone conversation did not yield an etiology for her potential threatening discomfort. On my visit, I recognized her left wrist was swollen, which she had not noticed,...