From RELENTLESS “It was a very strange time,” said Dr. David Reich, president of the Mount Sinai
R E L E N T L E S S is the compelling story of
Hospital. “As we were adapting to this shock of the pandemic descending upon us,
how one of America’s leading health care systems—the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City—mobilized to confront the defining health crisis of our time: the coronavirus pandemic.
the realization set in that New York was caught completely unaware by massive community spread. People started showing up at our hospitals—first in the tens, then the hundreds and then thousands.” The figures would strain credulity if we were not all living through it, a pandemic that would strike more than 111 million people across the globe and kill nearly 2.5 million in its first year, not to mention shutting down global economies and constricting daily life to little more than house arrest.
Early on, it was unclear where, exactly, the virus was hiding, although Mount Sinai scientists were discovering important clues. Anxiety, on the other hand, wasn’t
novelist, health care journalist, and editor who has written extensively about the intersection of science and medicine. She is the author of two novels, Sylvan Street and The Boy on the Bus. She previously worked as a reporter for United Press International. Her articles have appeared in academic publications and in major newspapers, including The New York Times. She has taught writing at Yale University, New York University, and Vermont College. Deborah is based in the New York City area.
hiding at all. It was front and center. PPE helped, and so did unprecedented levels of teamwork. Working outside your scope to maximize patient care and minimize patient contact quickly became standard operating procedure. Neurosurgeons emptied trash. Plastic surgeons changed IVs. “Everyone,” said one clinician, “was everything.” That included stepping in as surrogate family members, as clinicians in the midst of their hectic delivery of care—intubating, monitoring, rushing to code after code—took seriously their responsibility to ensure patients did not feel alone.
$24.95 ISBN 978-0-578-95838-5
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9 780578 958385
Published by the Mount Sinai Health System
Deborah Schupack
DEBOR AH SCHUPACK is a highly regarded
This book is based on unprecedented access to internal hospital documents and more than 100 candid interviews with the leaders of Mount Sinai’s eight hospitals and its Icahn School of Medicine. It contains accounts of physicians and nurses on the front lines throughout the system who pushed themselves to the brink to save lives; of research scientists who urgently worked to decipher the virus and find ways to counter it quickly and safely; and of the brave patients, staff members, and medical students who summoned their reserves of energy, compassion, and courage to fight the disease. R E L E NTL E S S closes with an exploration
and explanation of lessons learned—and of what needs to be done and what is being done to prepare for future pandemics and other health crises. Deborah Schupack, an acclaimed novelist and journalist, tells this story with the velocity and intensity of a gripping thriller and with the care and detail of great reporting. The heroism and fears, the triumphs large and small, the strength and improvisation that the fight against COVID-19 has entailed make RELENTLESS required reading for anyone who has been touched by the pandemic.