Here’s a guest blog from a friend and colleague who practices Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine and is also a Critical Care physician. I believe that she should remain anonymous for now. However, I was inspired by the emails and texts she has sent me and thought you would be, too. She’s sending me messages off the cuff – they are “raw” and not edited by her. However, I think that is best. She uses a lot of abbreviations and when I thought it was useful, I explained them in brackets. One day at the right time, I will tell you who she is and we can all thank her properly for her courage and commitment. Here are her COVID-19 Diaries – uncensored.
–Caroline
COVID-19 diaries – Day 2
Friday morning — there are 4 patients in the ICU with COVID-19. Today, I totally revamped the way we round in the unit. Usually the residents round without an attending. Instead, I told them that I would round with them and they would present the cases formally to me. I will admit that my assessment of the residents was that they weren’t the cream of the crop. However, to my amazement by the third patient, they could make a succinct presentation and they continue to improve.
I called the chief resident and told him he needed to pull residents in from their weekend respite because our Infectious Disease doctor was crazed and I needed help, too. One resident is particularly good at placing central lines, so he was assigned to put central lines in all the patients who required them while I rounded again, this time with the nurses and the Respiratory Therapists. I wanted to ensure that they had the resources they needed to do their jobs caring for patients. I also decided it was time for our ICU to start using prone positioning [meaning, positioning intubated patients face down – CF]. The staff had no experience with it, but I told them I knew they could do it. It took nine of us to do it the first time – partly due to inexperience and partly because the staff were curious and wanted to participate.
I think it helps one’s own fear and anxiety to be busy DOING something rather than sitting at home worrying about “what if…”
Dr. Fife is a world renowned wound care physician dedicated to improving patient outcomes through quality driven care. Please visit my blog at CarolineFifeMD.com and my Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/carolinefifemd/videos
Thanks for sharing these COVID-19 blogs – it’s good to take a break from the media coverage chaos and hear directly from those who are in the trenches and caring directly for these patients.