I had never thought much about Alzheimer’s disease, other than to hope that I never suffer from it. But after attending a heavy metal concert, that condition began to weigh on my heart and mind. The songs the band performed that evening were about a character sliding into the mental abyss of Alzheimer’s disease.

Empathy does not need to dissipate as we endure medical training. Both the pandemic and the national reckoning over racial injustice and police brutality have touched every aspect of life as we know it, and medical training and education have been no exception.

As Covid-19 continues to spread throughout the United States, doctors, nurses, and oth-er clinicians are facing unmistakable tragedies. But something less perceptible is afoot. Empathy in medicine is under siege.