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I have been a child psychiatrist for more than 20 years. I’ve worked in the city, in the suburbs, and in rural settings. I’ve seen patients in teaching hospitals and I’ve run a busy private practice. In all that time, I have never seen psychiatric suffering as pervasive and intractable as I have over the last 18 months. The lack of real change in our nation’s child and adolescent mental health infrastructure has fostered a pernicious and pervasive defeatism among patients and clinicians alike. (Steven C. Schlozman, 5/20)

The pandemic has reached a gauzy twilight zone for many Americans. The available statistics, and conversations with friends and family, suggest that infections are everywhere. There are reports of breakouts and rebounds. Clearly a surge is underway, but not one of the same ferocity as omicron or delta. This is a good moment to appreciate the central lesson of this public health catastrophe: It will surprise, and surprise again. We must keep our eyes open for unexpected change. (5/19)

When Johns Hopkins University announced that the United States had surpassed 1 million deaths from covid-19, I was recovering from my first (and hopefully last) bout of the disease. I had prepared as much as I could — shout-out to Pfizer — so the infection passed like a nasty flu. Earlier in the crisis, an immunocompromised man in his late 50s, as I am, might have ended up in the hospital, on a ventilator, a coin flip away from eternity. (Michael Gerson, 5/19)

On the day of the abortion, we drove to the specified street corner in New Jersey at 8 a.m., where we were told we would be met by a driver in a station wagon, and to be sure to have the $1500. We arrived early, terrified to say the least, and were surprised to see three other young women also waiting. I was told Em, my girlfriend and the other three would return at 4 p.m., and not to panic or “do anything stupid.” At 4:10 p.m. the station wagon arrived and returned the other three women but not Em. No Em! The driver said there were some complications, but she’d be back here within the hour. By 5 p.m., I was nearly hysterical. Visions of her lying in a pool of blood, dying in some New Jersey back alley, flooded my brain. I was the most disturbed I’d ever been in my life. (Eric Glass, 5/19)