A Medical Ethicist Asks How Can We Regenerate, Not Restore, Life Before COVID
A Return to What Was Cannot Fix the Challenges Laid Bare by This Unavoidable Pause
I.
On the walls of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where I work, there is a print by the artist Raymond Pettibon. It shows a swath of blue paint above the words, “Yes, but alas, the blue sky has been repainted. By restoration, there is no telling how much you have lost.”
I usually visit Pettibon’s work on my way back from teaching rounds with the medical teams in the Intensive Care Unit. Alone after raw encounters with broken and ailing bodies and disrupted lives, I often seek out the reminder: restoration …
