As of today, New York has 37,000 cases of #COVID19. Our teams at @nyphospital are working night and day not just to take care of sick patients...
But to adapt our practice to change. Changes in patient population, in acuity, in personnel, in space.
We're doing this because we, as healthcare professionals, are committed to our profession and committed to our community.
New York City feels like a ghost town lately. Empty subways. Deserted streets. Dark restaurants and theaters.
But the hardest part is inside the hospital's walls: patients who are critically ill, not just the old but also the young.
Seeing exhausted nurses and physicians, who are facing uncertainty and change as am I.
Explaining to patient's families why despite horrendous conditions, that we could not allow visitors for the safety of our staff and other patients.
Except for dying, when a visitor or two may be allowed. There are no classes in medicine to help one decide when a patient crosses the threshold from "critically ill; prognosis is grave" to "dying."
The best guides are not the things you see and hear. It's what you feel. For even with learning and study and practice and culture, we are still human.
But the hardest part, by far, is when your colleagues get sick and need your care. The physician, the healer, the vanquisher of disease, brought low by the virus. Vulnerable. In need.
The tears of the family; not seen, but heard. My own tears felt on my cheek.
But we go on. We get through another day. And for a speciality that loves to plan, the virus has another idea.
I'd love to plan for the next week. But plans made in the morning are revised by noon, and irrelevant by 6pm.
So we scale up. We make use of the space we have. The operating rooms re-envisioned as an intensive care unit. 30 more patients we can take care of.
Working together: anesthesiologists, internists, surgeons, all one team. Pooling our ideas and leveraging our strengths. Avoiding duplication of effort, for that is waste.
For the curve is still going up, and the worst is yet to come. But we will get through these times. One day at a time. Scaling up. Planning. Communicating. Coordinating.
Because the community is our mission, and the community is part of us.
We will be changed on the other sides in ways I'm a little frightened to imagine. But it is perfect love that casts out fear.
And perfect love is an act of generosity. An encouraging word. A deed of kindness.
MLK Jr: "We must use the time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do what is right."
And in the words of Tennyson's Ulysses, "That which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
And strong together: nurses, technicians, therapists, transporters, cooks, cleaners, doctors, and administrators doing everything we possibly can.
I do not speak for @nyphospital or @ColumbiaMed. This thread comprises my own thoughts. But I am proud to work with the committed people here, alongside @ColumbiaCCM @ColumbiaSurgery and @CUMCAnesthesia. We are here for New York City.
