COVID pandemic has come in and changed our lives.
In such a short amount of time, I'm just surprised.
At the impact that one virus can have.
When this first came out, honestly, I thought it was, you know, it was like a bad cold and
only people who were 70 and older with some co-existing medical conditions would really
be affected.
And in a short amount of time we realized there was a lot we did not know about this
disease and we're still learning.
And that's the scary part, the unknown.
When is this gonna be over?
If you get the disease, how do you know if you're gonna have the mild symptoms or you're
going to be like some of these people who are young and healthy and are dying from this
disease?
How long is are you gonna be immune from it?
I mean, this is just so much that we're learning.
And what I will say is.
It's scary being on the frontlines.
I'm currently working in a fever and cough clinic, so I'm seeing patients come in with
COVID.
I am also helping out with the COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma study and hearing the stories of people
who have recovered and everything from very mild to asymptomatic and lost their taste
or smell to in the hospital with pneumonia both of the lungs on a ventilator.
And it's not always like I said earlier, though, people that you expect and it's it's scary
on many factors at being a nurse practitioner and being here in this this center.
Of course, I'm scared to get COVID.
I live by myself.
Who's gonna take care of me if I'm sick or can't have my mother know anybody around me
who's also going to get sick.
So that's the fear.
But I will say what?
Motivates me to be here in a come here on a weekly basis because I'm an I'm a nurse.
I am a nurse practitioner.
I chose this profession for a reason.
I chose it because I want to help and make an impact in people's lives.
And as cliche as that sounds, I think a lot of the health care providers that people on
the frontlines, we put that fear aside and really think about the good that we're doing
and knowing that we we have this this this talent, this skill, this education is background
that we could go out and help people, help people survive, help people, you know, with
preventing this, spreading the word, educating.
And we're choosing to do that because that's a profession that we chose.
I have been around to 911.
I was working in New York at a hospital during that time.
And I could tell you, nothing compares to what is happening now.
It's it's affecting everyone around me.
I know people have lost their mother, people who have COVID, people, you know, who are
right now in the hospital on a ventilator, not knowing if they're going to make it or
not.
It's it's scary.
But what I will know there, there are some beautiful things that come out of this.
And I can tell you, working in the hospital, I have had the opportunity to work with the
nurse educators from New York Presbyterian and putting together educational programs
so that we can train our nursing students to be nurse technicians and work on the frontline,
that we're putting programs together for residents so they can be on the floors and helping with
drawing blood and doing certain clinical skills.
That will definitely take the burden off of the nurses to taking nurses who have been
working in an operating room setting and now, you know, being redeployed to work on a medical
surgical floor and work with patients with COVID.
So in times of need, we know how to step up.
We know how to collaborate, to work together in a short amount of time and do what's best
to get the job done, which is taking care of these patients.
The hope, what wish five weeks from now, six weeks from now, I would have known being that
I'm in the simulation field, that is that's what we do.
We practice these situations over and over again so that when they do happen, we'll be
better prepared.
And boy, do I wish there was a simulation for this.
We practiced disaster simulations.
It's just not the same.
And I don't think we ever could have been prepared for what happened.
But the hope is moving forward.
We go back once this is all said and done and look back to see what could we have done
differently, what are those amazing things that we did?
And how do we create a policy guidelines protocol?
You know, in the future so that if this ever happens again and I wish it doesn't, that
would be better prepared.
And we won't lose as many lives.
And we'll be able to, you know, make sure we have the amount of beds that we need and
the equipment that we need.
So just taking the lessons learned and making sure that we're in a better place if this
ever happens again.