- Well, good morning folks.
You're coming with me for another day in my life
in the hospital.
I get to show you some cool aspects
of how we've adapted care in the era of COVID-19.
I'm gonna shower, I promise.
Thank you.
I'm going to give a huge thank you to Clorox for sponsoring
this part of the video.
Before heading out to work and starting my day
and leaving Bear unattended,
I want to make sure I leave my house really clean.
So I'm gonna show you how I clean my commonly touched
surfaces like this countertop right here using Clorox bleach
with Cloro Max.
I actually premixed the solution as directed right there,
have my gloves to keep me safe.
I dip my white rag and I wipe it down. Wipe it down.
Now, in all seriousness,
you're gonna get proven disinfection.
You're gonna kill 99.9% of germs
with only a third of a cup.
Just make sure that you follow directions really carefully
on that one.
You could use this on a lot of high touch areas.
Remember I told you those are the areas,
Bear, you're distracting me, buddy.
Those are the areas that are gonna have
the most germs on them.
So you think faucets, doorknobs,
just a lot of non porous surfaces that get touched
quite frequently, and as they say,
"When it really matters, trust Clorox."
Let's give Clorox a huge thank you for sponsoring
this portion of the video.
I'm about to hop in the shower,
clean myself, and get ready to take on another day
at the hospital.
There was a very crazy start to the morning,
I was woken up several times throughout the night
by news agencies reaching out,
asking if I'm able to do television this morning,
I'm actually going into the office.
So I won't be able to do media.
Today is an outpatient family medicine day.
TGIF.
Donna, are you ready? - I am ready!
- What are we doing?
- We're giving you your flu shot.
- Why? - Keep you healthy.
- Are you gonna be really rough with the needle?
- I'm gonna be so gentle.
I think I might jab you a little.
- She's gonna jab me, but that's because I misbehave a lot.
This is the flu shot.
We're gonna close the door cause it's getting serious.
Be rough with me, let's go, pull it up as hard as you need.
It's stretchy.
- I want you to relax.
- I'm relaxed.
- One, two, three. Huge.
(beep)
Perfect.
- That was really good. That was smooth.
- You did not even move. - That was smooth.
While we're sitting here, I have my bone pen.
(laughing)
But in all seriousness, everyone at home,
please get your flu shot.
We really need it now more than ever.
It's COVID-19 season.
And while this flu shot does not prevent you
from getting COVID-19,
it does prevent you from getting a virus which may look like
COVID-19, which will lead to a ton of confusion.
On top of that, with hospitals being busy,
handling COVID-19 patients,
we don't want you to get sick with the flu and then have to
come into the hospital for care.
It's funny, I'm actually in an exam room right now,
but as you can tell, there's no patient here.
But there is a computer and this computer has a webcam
and a microphone all set up for virtual patient visits,
which we've been doing a lot of.
In fact, telemedicine has absolutely blown up
during the COVID-19 pandemic and rightfully so.
A lot of things you can take care of by a virtual visit.
Having a conversation about medications,
perhaps looking at some rashes,
there's all sorts of guidance that we can give
through a virtual visit.
That being said, a virtual visit does not replace
a visit face to face with your doctor.
There's all sorts of benefits to seeing a doctor in person,
including getting an accurate physical exam,
reading body cues, having a better
doctor-patient connection.
The physical exam is probably the most important though.
- Yo, Tia?
- Yeah?
- You know what time it is?
- What time is it? (laughs)
- It's lunchtime. I'm treating today.
- We're chilling with our favorite doctor, Mike, here.
- What do you wanna eat?
You always tell me I don't order enough food.
- Where's the buffalo pizza you normally order?
(dramatic music)
- Team! What are we eating?
- That sandwiches place down on Main Street.
- Okay, sandwiches?
- Yeah.
- Okay, Greg, any votes?
- Not really.
(dramatic music)
- Tell me how COVID has affected your life.
- It has affected me, I would say personally.
- Okay.
- And emotionally.
At the end of it, if we work really hard to stay safe
and follow guidelines,
we'll be better off in the long run.
And that's something that gets me by.
I wanna show you guys real quick,
some COVID related changes in the office.
This is our waiting area.
Social distancing is important.
We're also not having patients wait here.
They actually call us from the parking lot.
Let us know that they're here.
We get them checked in, meet them right by the door.
Do a temperature check, ask a few questions,
bring them in following a one way path.
Patients can only walk through this hallway,
exit through there, enter through there.
This is cool. I like pointing away.
Stacy, why are you laughing?
Just stop laughing at me for one second.
Vivian, how do you feel about 5 million people seeing you?
- It's a very trying experience.
(laughing)
- So I just had a really interesting patient encounter
with a young gentleman who was complaining of easy bruising
and actually bruising that happened over the last weekend
without any trauma or any inciting incident.
And in these conditions, a lot of people start going
to clotting issues, platelet dysfunction,
even cancer, sometimes.
What's interesting with this patient,
all those things have already been ruled out
because they were seen by hematologist,
who is a blood specialist.
This is the second time they're being evaluated for this
approximately a year later.
And right away, my mind jumped to something
that was actually learned in medical school.
And that's Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome,
which is a connective tissue disorder that causes
hypermobile joints, skin issues like easy bruising.
So I asked the patient, if he has any hypermobility,
and he said, "Oh yeah, I consider myself double jointed."
He's able to bring his thumb all the way to his wrist.
The skin is very elastic, very loose.
So now we're beginning the evaluation to see if he has EDS.
But unless we think outside of the box,
when a patient comes in, you can miss a diagnosis like EDS.
That's why it's important to get a thorough,
thorough history, each time you talk to a patient.
I swear sometimes like, you think people are doing work.
You think they're doing work, but instead,
here's what they're doing.
Here's what they're doing. What is that?
That's not work.
(laughing)
You're looking at dog pictures.
(laughing)
Abuse, call HR.
- Breaking news, they put you in a tutu.
- That is my tutu. So I did that for breast cancer
and it is breast cancer awareness month.
So folks, if you're of age, get screened,
talk to your doctor about it.
Today was sort of a short day.
It's only about five, six o'clock.
I thought I'd decide to drive over to the main hospital
and show you what we're doing here in terms of
preparing for a potential second wave of COVID.
Yeah, look who run into.
Who is that? Who is this?
- Hey, get me off of YouTube!
- Okay.
(dramatic music)
Now, this ladies and gentlemen, is a sign I can get behind.
The stairs of the hospital.
This is where we got all our exercise in
when we were residents.
This is where I would sprint up and down when it was a code
blue, you know, chest compressions, chest compressions,
chest compressions.
All right.
We're officially on the floor that can be used
if there is a need for overflow of ICU patients specifically
made to battle COVID-19.
A lot of people have been wondering,
what are hospitals doing to prepare if there is a second
wave of COVID-19?
Well, this is what we're doing.
There's technological advancements
that I want to show you throughout this unit,
that is a prime example of collaboration between
the nursing staff, that healthcare staff,
engineering staff, which you may not think of
as part of healthcare team,
but they're a vital part of the health care team.
- Engineering basically made these
eight beds pods for us, and they gave us a monitor system.
So we can look inside all the rooms.
So we don't have to go in the room.
And also they gave us these monitors so that we can adjust
the physiologic monitors in the room,
so we don't have to go in.
The other thing they did is during COVID,
when nurses needed something,
they'd have to bang on the door,
get someone's attention and scream to the door saying,
"I need this."
So, intercom system.
- Wow.
- So all the rooms have intercom systems.
On the med surge units, the doors
had little slits for windows.
- Yep.
- So here, they made the windows much bigger,
easy visibility, and we don't have to peer through
a little slit.
The other thing is outlets.
- Oh yeah, something that we take for granted.
We don't even think about those.
- Outlets on the wall in the hallway.
- Why should they be in the hallway?
- Because that's where all the equipment is.
- Right.
So you don't want to have it inside the patient's room.
'Cause then if you need to change it, that's a waste of PPE.
That's a potential exposure.
- The other great thing engineering did, listened to us,
is they built these little holes in the wall.
What that does is, we feed our IV tubing through.
Each of the rooms is outfitted with what we call a scrubber.
So if you make any room into negative pressure.
- Look at that.
- All the patients had to be at negative pressure.
- Exactly, so for those of you who don't know
what negative pressure room is, it basically sucks
the air into the room, keeps the air into the room
so that infection doesn't potentially seep out
into the environment, getting others sick,
which protects other patients and nursing staff, doctors,
CMAs, everyone who's around.
So how many total beds are available on this floor?
- So there's going to be a total of 32.
- 32 beds, and they're available, ready to use
already if we need them.
- Correct.
- So we're prepared for the surge.
We're ready to help people out.
And these can be full on ICUs.
- They can be full on ICUs.
- Wow, okay. So we're ready.
Is there like a central nursing station?
- There is. - Can we see that?
- You have a large monitoring screen here.
The cameras that we can look at all the rooms right here
and then our central monitoring station is right here.
- And then you have oxygen meters, medical air,
the vacuums, everything is set up, so it could be done
right here without necessarily entering the patient's room.
- Correct.
- Hopefully we won't need to use this unit much,
but if the situation arises, we can absolutely know
that we're going to be taken care of.
Our patients are going to be taken care of,
our staff is going to be safe.
Do you have any parting words for YouTube audience here?
- No. Just, you know, don't feel like, care.
If you're sick, come to the hospital,
we are a safe place to be.
We have many lessons that we learned that we've put into
place already.
And we're here for you.
- Healthcare hero right here. (laughs)
Alrighty, you guys got the full tour, the COVID wing.
I am on my way home. Not to relax, but to do some notes.
Every job has its pros and cons.
Writing long notes, cons of this job,
but the pros most definitely outweigh it.
I'd never trade my career for anything else.
(gentle music)