Alex Kazemi

Guest writer

Alex Kazemi is a doctor and writer, currently studying Public Health at the University of Auckland. He has worked as an intensive care specialist and was formerly Clinical Head of Intensive Care at Middlemore Hospital, Auckland. He is also an avid day-dreamer.

Photo: Getty Images; additional design by Tina Tiller

Avoiding the icebergs: Healthcare after Covid

We're navigating out of the pandemic with a new perspective on wellbeing, both of healthcare workers and the communities they serve.

By Alex Kazemi | 8th March, 2022

Image: Tina Tiller

In the face of a pandemic, in a storm of uncertainty, we must put caution first

The paradox of the precautionary principle is that the best thing to happen, when it is properly used, is that nothing happens at all.

By Alex Kazemi | 30th September, 2021

Counting physical bed spaces if those bed spaces are not staffed by an ICU nurse is essentially meaningless. Photo: Getty Images

If you listen closely enough you can hear the whole system shudder

Amid a delta outbreak, a pandemic still roaring around the world, and a push towards reopening borders, this is the reality at the sharp end of the NZ health system.

By Alex Kazemi | 23rd August, 2021

Sarah Wilkins for The Spinoff.

Sunday Essay: The vaccination

Now, when all this is over, I think that I might tell my children something like this.

By Alex Kazemi | 9th May, 2021

Marseille during the Great Plague. Michel Serre-Peste-Cours Belsunce, 1721.

A tale of two plagues

'On one scale the coronavirus that plagues us is microscopic. On another we ourselves are made small.' An essay by Alex Kazemi.

By Alex Kazemi | 26th October, 2020

Street art on a wall in England (Photo: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

Heroes and monsters of health

Watching the ritual weekly clapping for the NHS from afar, an ICU doctor in New Zealand felt nothing but grave unease.

By Alex Kazemi | 26th July, 2020

Counting physical bed spaces if those bed spaces are not staffed by an ICU nurse is essentially meaningless. Photo: Getty Images

An ICU doctor on how we can emerge from the storm into a place to mend

I see the energy and creativity within our hospital during this crisis. It’s time to harness that, not to hamper it further.

By Alex Kazemi | 12th May, 2020