IDN OPPORTUNITIES
Serving on the Front Lines Emergency physicians were tired, but determined, amid rising hospitalization rates and COVID cases. Dr. Ryan Stanton, an emergency physician practicing in Kentucky, didn’t have to think long about what words he
would use to sum up how he feels after months of providing emergency care amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Repertoire: Can you describe the toll that the pandemic has taken on emergency physicians and their departments? How has it affected their mental and physical health? Dr. Ryan Stanton: I think everybody in medicine, but especially emergency medicine, is just tired now. Everybody is worn out. We can’t see each other’s faces, and everything’s very isolated. We can’t get together, we can’t do the things that we used to do for team building. Then you’re especially nervous because a lot of folks outside the hospital feel like you’re always contagious. So we have friends that haven’t been willing to talk to us since the onset because we’re in healthcare and they feel like we’re a Typhoid Mary, just waiting to spread COVID to everybody. Then there were the initial frustrations with lack of PPE, or adequate PPE, when you’d start opening up masks and all the instructions are in Chinese. And even now with the vaccine. Most that have access to it are overjoyed. But we’re hearing from places where it may not be getting to physicians in emergency conditions, emergency staff, front line folks. The logistics are tough, and trying to fight all the false narratives and conspiracies and everything that is out there is frustrating as well. Dr. Ryan Stanton
“Fatigued and tired,” he said. “Everybody’s worn out.” Indeed, the nation’s frontline caregivers have paid a physical, mental, and emotional toll in fighting the pandemic. Record-breaking hospitalization rates have taxed emergency physicians and emergency department staff in unprecedented ways. Dr. Stanton, a board member of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), talked to Repertoire about the challenges, and the repercussions for emergency departments and healthcare as a whole moving forward. 8
March 2021
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Repertoire: What has COVID’s effect been on staffing shortages? Dr. Stanton: The shortages are twofold. In my situation, I started getting symptoms Thanksgiving week, so it was hard to get a test to confirm it. I had shifts coming up, so I was worried about getting those shifts covered. Thankfully for me it went very smoothly. But for the nursing situation, you have exposures, people are out and of course the changing amount of time that it’s going to be – whether it’s 10 days, 14 days, etc., A lot of hospitals and facilities have models where even with exposure you still work unless you develop symptoms, because some people were taking advantage of it.
