Public Radio East serves Eastern North Carolina by providing news, fine arts, and informational programming that challenges, stimulates, educates, and entertains an intellectually curious audience.

© 2026 Public Radio East

Public Radio East
800 College Court
New Bern, NC 28562

EIN 56-1802728
Public Radio For Eastern North Carolina 89.3 WTEB New Bern 88.5 WZNB New Bern 91.5 WBJD Atlantic Beach 90.3 WKNS Kinston 89.9 W210CF Greenville
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
US

'Did I Do The Right Thing?': An ER Doctor On Ethics Of The Pandemic

Ohio State employee Cory Coffey, right, administers a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, in Columbus, Ohio.  (Jay LaPrete/AP)
Ohio State employee Cory Coffey, right, administers a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, in Columbus, Ohio. (Jay LaPrete/AP)

Listen: today’s show on the ethical dilemmas of the pandemic.


“At least half of my shifts, when I’m driving home, I’m thinking to myself, did I do the right thing?”

That’s Amal Mattu, an emergency physician at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. He’s been an emergency physician for more than 25 years. And in those 25 years, he says the ER has consistently delivered ethical, potentially life-or-death challenges. Then the pandemic happened.

In this radio diary, we discuss the ethical complications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this diary … we hear from:

Amal Mattu, an emergency physician at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, and professor of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

US