ALUMNI NEWS Covid-19 Edition. By John Weitzel We felt that this year rather than highlighting alumni who had featured in the News we should concentrate on just a few of the many ways that alumni have helped in responding to the coronavirus crisis. The most interesting analysis of what life was like for those on the front line came from Peter Brindley (Class of 1987) who is a Critical Care physician at the University of Alberta. He used his knowledge of military history to write a thought provoking piece ‘Life in the Trenches’ in Canada’s National Post. “Like you, we health-care workers are scared as we prepare to ‘go over the top.’ Like the elderly, I have healthcare colleagues who worry that we are considered expendable, and those fears need to be heard and addressed. Regardless, I am reassured that at the bedside we have each other’s backs: which is a good job given the daily need to ‘buddy-check’ protective equipment. Hyperbole aside, I truly have never been prouder of our staff. Moaning has been replaced with meaning, and many of us are surprisingly happy not being resigned to barracks.” It was a similar story closer to home. John Hardie (Class of 2007) who moved into medicine after studying Music at Oxford is a Doctor in an ICU in Surrey. There he was ‘redeployed’ from the cancellation of his routine operations to help with the vast increase in ICU patients where his familiarity of the ‘acute’ was a big bonus. For Marcus Wood (Class of 1992) the change to his normal working week was even greater. As a Consultant Anaesthetist at Leicester Royal Infirmary he changed to a 12-hour shift system including resident nights. He wrote: “As Anaesthetists are advanced airway specialists who have been trained in varying degrees of intensive care medicine, we have been tasked with intubating the suspected/ confirmed Covid19 patients in A&E, transferring them to Intensive Care, setting up the ventilators and placing the invasive lines. All this is done whilst wearing full PPE which includes a full
20
face respirator for most of us. The PPE becomes uncomfortable after about 4 hours but it’s obviously vital to be protected against the virus.” It was a similar story for Michael Glasby (Class of 1991). “My work as a vascular interventional radiologist in Leicester would normally entail a varied mix of procedures throughout the body for limb circulation problems, aortic aneurysms, kidney dialysis, uterine fibroids, prostates etc. However, with the corona virus pandemic, virtually all of the routine practice was stopped as wards were cleared for patients suffering with Covid-19. Within a couple of weeks, the clinics, corridors and public areas in the hospitals, which would normally be bustling with outpatients and visitors were eerily quiet. Conversely, respiratory wards and intensive cares were exceptionally busy. Within my speciality, our practice was reduced to urgent or emergency cases mainly while adapting to different ways of working using PPE, social distancing, using video conferencing to discuss patients and staff often having to self-isolate.” However, it wasn’t all about Covid-19 as Jon Mutimer (Class of 1992) wrote. “I’m an orthopaedic consultant in Cheltenham. No elective (planned) work at present nationally although we have our trauma to continue with. We have redesigned our rota to continue to do trauma operating and fracture clinics as well as taking minor injuries from Emergency department. Other activities include working on the wards and in ITU which is a bit of a change for a surgeon!!” For our most recently trained Doctors it was much the same. Will Crookes (Class of 2013) a Foundation Year 2 Doctor working in A&E at Chesterfield Royal Hospital wrote: “The Covid-19 Pandemic came as a new challenge to Doctors and other Healthcare
Professionals at all stages of their careers. As a Junior Doctor in my second year of work, working in the Emergency Department at a time like this pushed me to learn quickly and be flexible, adapting to a situation which, at the height of the initial surge, was changing on a daily basis. With rotas altered to provide optimum staffing levels in key areas at busy times, we were working a lot of unsociable hours, particularly nights; sometimes for several weeks in a row. Whilst it has been exhausting, being given the responsibility to assess a high burden of critically unwell patients has been an experience which will serve me well in my future career.” Keeping the NHS supplied with critical goods was the job of Will Gardner (Class of 2003) who has worked all his life in the transport industry and currently works for Pall-Ex. He found himself on the front line supporting key workers and industry, having signed ‘The Armed Forces Covenant’ last year. Providing food for the NHS fell to Rosie Thomas (Class of 2012) who, after finding her work connecting supply teachers and schools had fallen to zero, shifted to volunteer for the start-up organisation ‘Meals for the NHS’. Working shifts up to 14-hours long, with no access to food after 5pm, and PPE restrictions making it almost impossible to find a meal outside hospital walls, NHS staff had a serious problem, and it needed to be solved. Founded on 21 March 2020, in its first 100 days 100 volunteers supplied over 300,000 meals to 146 hospitals Harvi Poonian (Class of 2009) was volunteering for Loughborough Against
