COVID-19 UPDATE
COVID-19 Infectious Disease Virtual Outpatient Team: A Telemedicine Response to the Pandemic By Emily Sherry
Beginning with the COVID-19 pandemic, Long School of Medicine volunteers and medical students rotating on the Family Medicine clerkship had the opportunity to be a part of the COVID-19 Infectious Diseases Virtual Outpatient Team. As part of the team, we contacted patients via phone calls who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 after hospital discharge or after diagnosis at 5 days and 14 days. Our major goals included monitoring patients’ symptoms and a COVID-19 illness course, offering medical resources, escalating patient care to infectious disease specialists when needed, connecting patients with primary care and listening to patients’ other, nonmedical needs. Through the experience on the COVID-19 Infectious Diseases Virtual Outpatient Team, I felt we all gained a more personal understanding of the needs of patients within our San Antonio and Texas communities, as well as the macrocosm of the pandemic. By contributing to phone follow-ups, we developed educational and clinical skills that better enabled us to serve the needs of patients right now. Not only has the experience been a chance for our outpatient team to reach a large number of people and maintain contact, but also the virtual person-to-person encounter has given us a foundation to reflect and build upon how we envision ourselves as physicians serving patients in the future. We won’t always be caring for patients in a pandemic setting, yet certain themes transcend all medical work and time. For me person28
SAN ANTONIO MEDICINE • July 2021
ally, serving different roles as medical team member, educator, support system and advocate illuminated various timeless professional development questions. How will we care for patients when we don’t have all the answers for them? How will we educate patients during scenarios in which many unknowns surround their condition? And as our fellow medical communities fight for the human person, what will our response be as health care professionals? In reflecting, I was reminded of reverberating motifs that drew me to medicine in the first place. These motifs include the value of being truly present with the human person; bringing the passion, compassion and joy for medicine that carried me to this calling into every patient experience; and always respecting the dignity of the human person in how I advocate and care for them. I think medical professionals have been adapting and growing to address this pandemic with creativity, courage, flexibility and teamwork, amidst uncertainty and unpredictability. Notably, we face the same question that we answered every day before COVID-19 through our actions, mindset and integrity that we bring to the clinical environment: How will we care for our patients today? In the momentous crucible of COVID-19, the question has remained the same, but is textured to the rapidly changing circumstances of health care and our world. Currently, telehealth is playing a major role in making health care more accessible and safer for patients and clinic teams. Being a part of the COVID-19 Infectious Diseases Vir-
