Brief Thoughts on the COVID Epidemic Hannah Cottrel | PGY-1, Pediatrics

Brief Thoughts on the COVID Epidemic

Hannah Cottrel Essay

Filing into work is like filing into line reporting for active duty. Soldiers with our heads down, faces turned away to avoid the spread of disease through the mist exiting our bodies unknowingly. The fear that a particle of COVID rests on our shirt, our finger, our stethoscope is ever present. There is no real solace for a health care worker in the pandemic. At work we put aside any thoughts of normalcy as we hear constant updates about the PPE and ventilator availability, along with the blaring alerts for the near constant intubations and codes.

As a pediatric resident, we are still treating our typical patients, the newly diagnosed teen with lymphoma, the ex-26 weeker on TPN, the medically complex child who has spent years of her life in our hospital. And yet now, we also have new patients, young people in their twenties, thirties, and even forties who contracted COVID 19 and are now being treated by pediatricians, many of whom are now younger than our patients. We fight the urge to relate, to emote, to explain what’s happening to these fearful eyes, and instead we flee because one extra minute is an extra minute of contagion. If we get sick, who will treat our patients? We scour the internet for recommendations and guides to treating adult

COVID patients, and we review intubation procedures just in case one of our patients tips off of the razor sharp edge of stability. When we leave the hospital, after 12-14 hour shifts, there is no reprieve. There are thousands of questions, concerns, well wishes from friends and family across the country. And yet, at least for me, a young and single resident newly transplanted to New York City, there’s no one here. I fear transmitting the disease that I encounter every day, and any upcoming chance I had to see my friends or family has been cancelled. While many are able to work from home and share in their quarantine with roommates or immediate family members, health care workers have had to shun physical contact to prevent the spread of disease. My only physical contact with another human in my day is the brief moments I spend with my stethoscope to the chest of my patients. A moment that lasts forever and a second as I flee the room, hidden from human connection by my goggles, mask, and gown.