Q: What is your medical specialty?
A: Pediatrics
Q: What is it like to be a doctor right now going through a pandemic?
A: Being a doctor is very unnerving and stressful during during this time. Every day we have to model flexibility since our work flow is changing almost daily. Our medical assistants and patients are scared and so our our patients. Modeling calmness is really important but tough when we are on edge ourselves. Having a daily concern about the inadequacies of our PPE/testing capabilities adds to this. This means that I isolate myself from my family and even sent mt husband to live at another house to protect them from me. I do not know what I would do if I had small children. On the flip side many of my patients are more demonstrably appreciative of me and are more forgiving of what I can do for them.
Q: Do you feel that the local government is doing its job in terms of aiding hospitals? Why or why not?
A: I feel the local/state public health department made a great decision in closing down the state early. This has made a huge difference in the surge of patients through the hospitals here. Unfortunately any help with lack of PPE/swabs for testing which limit how we can really shut this illness down has not been present. There are crickets in out Town Hall meetings where I work about how we are getting more swabs/PPE and when we should expect more. Now we are going into the next weeks without any knowledge if we will really run out of supplies.
Q: Do you feel that the federal government is doing its job in terms of aiding hospitals? Why or why not?
A: The Federal government has really dropped the ball. An epidemic this large needs coordinated strategic plan and not patch work fill in the gaps plan. Since we clearly did not stockpile supplies for a pandemic we need to see what areas are not hit as hard right now and divert supplies like vents to areas in need and not hope for the kindness of some (one) governors to ship excess supplies to the hot spots. tHere should also be a coordinated mandate to increase supplies of the private sector to make more PPE/vents so as not to price gauge and again to have a more coordinated supply chain. Should I go on . This whole thing has really sucked including dismantling the CDC pandemic response team to missing all the warning signs in
Q: How have you been coping with this pandemic on and off the job?
A: Coping is sometimes tough especially when I have asked my husband to live in another location and have quarantined my kids from me. However, I am trying to take more walks/exercise. I zoom friends and send funny memes to them. I also remind myself frequently that I am grateful for a job that allows me to provide for my family while other families may be struggling financially.
Q: Do you think that this pandemic seems to clash with HIPPA laws in any way? Why or why not?
A: It's totally ridiculous that we can not be listing how many COVID patients are in a hospital as common knowledge so that physicians etc can track where the trends are. Additionally it is really hard to back track and see if we were exposed to a Covid-19 patient and we have to rely on our facility to do patient tracing to contact us.
Q: What is the best advice you can give to people who are afraid for themselves or someone they love?
A: I would remind people that this will come to an end. I encourage them to stay healthy and exercise since most of my patients are in the low risk group. I am fortunate to live in California where the curve was not exponential which means most people around them will be safe. Unlike the polio epidemic that my mother lived through we have the science of vaccination and antibody testing that can help us lift through this although we need to have some patience.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?
A: Please find someone in your community that you can help. Calling your grandparents. Dropping food off at someone that is at risk for going to the store. Finding ways to pay people for work remotely if possible. (I have pain my daughter’s trumpet teacher more than normal for his lessons and doing them more frequently to help him. I have reached out to my hair dresser to see if I can buy haircuts in the future for her to help her.
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