1/10 It’s hard to shut my mind off in the face of #COVID19. As #AcuteCareSurgeons our day/night/weekend jobs taking care of #injured patients and #patients needing #EmergencySurgery for abdominal and soft tissue diseases do not dissipate.
2/10 Yet we are also experts in #CriticalCare and need to prepare to care for patients w/ #respiratoryfailure and #shock due to #COVID19. We are implementing #plans based on the little evidence that exists while trying to stay #safe, #healthy, and #resilient.
3/10 We step into the trauma bay as others threaten to shoot our patient (but police can protect us). We do operations where rHepC/HIV risk is high (but PEP can protect us). We don't shy away from blood, feces or dead flesh up to our eyeballs (but we have #PPE to protect us).
4/10 But the #uncertainty, sparse data and limited #PPE have humbled me. #SuicideMission is what someone on @NPR called what we are doing. Like telling airmen/women to jump out of a plane w/o a parachute (or as the @CDC suggested w/ a #scarf or #bandana to slow the #freefall.)
5/10 Then there is added #worry for our #WorkFamily. #AcuteCareSurgery is the ultimate #TeamSport. Alternating days in the hospital because of the real #fear that one or more of us will get sick from #COVID19 - and even the youngest and healthiest among us might die.
6/10 There is also our #RealFamily. We can’t hunker down with them to mitigate their #anxiety or ease #socialdistancing. So now I will expose the breaks in the #invisiblecoatofarmor that typically helps me thrive in a physically and emotionally challenging profession.
7/10 Here is where I share my #vulnerability @BreneBrown. I didn't mean to alarm my kids when I broke down in front of them but I am worried they might lose me. I didn't mean to alarm my parents when I sobbed on the phone but I am worried they live where #COVID19 rates are high.
8/10 I am fully prepared to provide care in the face of the #anticipatedsurge of #COVID19 b/c that’s what years of training and practice have prepared me to do. My #AcuteCareSurgery team and other #FrontlineHealthcareProviders will #persevere through this #challenge.
9/10 But with the #uncertainty, the lack of #PPE, the #worry for my family and my frontline colleagues, I am alarmed in a way that I have never been in 20 years of showing up every damn day to do this one thing - #helpotherslive.
10/10 So now it's time for the rest of you to chip in to do the same - #stayhome, #socialdistance, #washyourhands, don’t #hoard #PPE supplies that we need on the front lines - so that you can #helpotherslive too.
