How a Medical Ethicist Looks at COVID-19
New York City’s status as epicenter of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak has put immense stress on its healthcare industry, the doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulance drivers, and administrators who are the front line of the pandemic. In the space of a few weeks, they’ve had to adjust how they operate to fit a world that not only gives them hundreds of new patients a day, but forces them to face stark ethical issues posed by the inequity and weakness in the public health system unearthed by the pandemic. Columbia University medical ethicist Dr. Barbra Rothschild discusses what New York’s COVID-19 crisis says about the state of our healthcare system and how we should think about the next stage of the pandemic.
