My custom of observing Memorial Day has been shared by fewer among my university and medical school colleagues as those with past military service age out of life, most of them more quietly than could the honorees. Memorial Day itself historically represented a tribute to those making the most obvious and most necessary contribution to defending a nation, dying in combat. As the nature of such threats has shifted, those whom we may now choose to memorialize have served differently. This weekend’s New York Times provides a graphic representation of a 1% national sample of the first 100,000 to die of COVID-19 [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/24/us/us-coronavirus-deaths-100000.html]. Within that 100,000 will be a disproportion of healthcare providers; and among those healthcare providers will be those among us who have perished in serving our own patient population, those with addiction. It’s not generally an attractive population, and it is viewed commonly if mistakenly as having brought about its own misery; which causes the contributions of their care providers to be even more honorable, selfless, and courageous.

- W. Haning, MD