[BostonCard]

Having trained in pulmonary and critical care, a lot of my former colleagues are deployed in various ICU's around the counrty.  While I had functionally abandoned Facebook for a while, I recently started reconnecting in order to get first hand accounts from the front lines.  Here's one, from an ICU doctor in the LA area:

COVID Updates:

It is now ~week 8 of COVID for the [hospital\ crew and despite >6 weeks of shelter-in-place in LA, our ICU numbers unexpectedly spiked this past week. Though we have planned for this for weeks which made mobilizing physicians and moving patients to other ICUs more straightforward than it could have been, our ICU group really felt it this week. After an entire day of meetings and then an evening of making schedules for the 2020-21 year and realizing how many back-up systems I now need, I came home on Friday night absolutely defeated. Perhaps what I was also feeling was my colleagues and trainees going from a mode of "ready for battle" to much more of a disheartened state of mind. We wonder if this is ever going to end - the deaths, the grieving, the suffering, the stress/anxiety of everyone involved compounded by the social isolation. How can this possibly go on for months to years?

BC

[BostonCard]

Having trained in pulmonary and critical care, a lot of my former colleagues are deployed in various ICU's around the counrty.  While I had functionally abandoned Facebook for a while, I recently started reconnecting in order to get first hand accounts from the front lines.  Here's one, from an ICU doctor in the LA area:

COVID Updates:

It is now ~week 8 of COVID for the [hospital\ crew and despite >6 weeks of shelter-in-place in LA, our ICU numbers unexpectedly spiked this past week. Though we have planned for this for weeks which made mobilizing physicians and moving patients to other ICUs more straightforward than it could have been, our ICU group really felt it this week. After an entire day of meetings and then an evening of making schedules for the 2020-21 year and realizing how many back-up systems I now need, I came home on Friday night absolutely defeated. Perhaps what I was also feeling was my colleagues and trainees going from a mode of "ready for battle" to much more of a disheartened state of mind. We wonder if this is ever going to end - the deaths, the grieving, the suffering, the stress/anxiety of everyone involved compounded by the social isolation. How can this possibly go on for months to years?

BC