As community spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 began to take hold around the country in March, Fort Worth, Texas, allergist-immunologist Susan R. Bailey, MD, turned to her practice’s supply cabinet for personal protective equipment (PPE).

“The only masks we had in our office when the pandemic started was one box of 10 N95 masks that I had bought during the H1N1 pandemic in 2010, and I was amazed we still had them,” said Dr. Bailey, who was inaugurated as the AMA’s 175th president in June. “There are—just coincidentally—10 people in our office, and everybody got one and we said, ‘This is all you get until we can find some more.’”

That search for more PPE has proven extraordinarily frustrating, and added yet one more administrative burden amid a time of great stress for Dr. Bailey’s three-physician independent specialty practice.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

And here are some other articles I’ve written for the AMA website:

• CMS shouldn’t permanently relax rules on physician oversight
• How to ensure PPE access in pandemic? AMA offers 10-step road map
• Why telehealth progress could be erased if Congress fails to act
• Physician practices are losing out in the scramble for PPE