Fear, Courage, Grit: Meet More Than 50 ‘Hospital Heroes’ – WTOP
They Arent Backing Down The pandemic has dealt a massive blow to the country and world. Front-line health care workers
They Arent Backing Down
The pandemic has dealt a massive blow to the country and world. Front-line health care workers from coast to coast have gone above and beyond the call of duty pushing further in the face of fear than anyone can imagine. Many dont consider themselves heroes some even bristle at the word but U.S. News is chronicling their experiences, along with their hopes, fears and the lessons theyre learning during this historic year. In the slides ahead youll meet a nurse who came out of retirement to work alongside her daughter, a physician treating patients in the hard-hit Navajo Nation and so many more. These are U.S. News Hospital Heroes.
Dr. Rana Awdish
A critical care doctor on the front lines at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Awdish prepared herself, her family and her team for the inevitable hit from the virus. And it hit hard. Drawing on her experience as a patient on a ventilator after her own life-threatening medical emergency in 2008, she found herself in a unique position to understand the fear, pain and loneliness that her patients with COVID-19 were feeling at a personal level. Read her entire story.
Anticipating that kind of trauma will never protect you from it.
Father Chris Ponnet
Father Ponnets work as director of spiritual care at LAC+USC Medical Center brings end-of-life peace to patients and to their families, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, when loved ones are unable to be present at the end. He does his best to make patients feel seen while cataloging as much as he can of his time to share with the patients family. He wears an N95 mask, goggles, a face shield and a disposable gown and gloves to minister to these patients. Read his entire story.
My role is to be a bridge between the family and the patient, Ponnet says. I want to capture as much of what is happening in the room as possible, to report to the family.
Esbeda Refugio
Making the choice to continue her work as a custodian at LAC+USC Medical Center in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic was not an easy one for Refugio. As a single mom of four children, she worried about bringing the virus home. However, her sense of duty to both the patients and the other hospital employees ultimately made the decision for her. Donning PPE, Refugio cleans two to three COVID rooms a shift, though she treats all rooms as if the patients were COVID-positive given the infectious nature of the disease. Read her entire story.
Its my responsibility to protect others, not only when it comes to patient care, but also the doctors, the nurses and the respiratory techs who go into the room, she says. I want everybody to be safe, so I clean to the best of my ability.
Patrick OConnor
OConnor isnt a doctor or nurse, but his role is no less essential. When the pandemic first landed at LAC+USC Medical Center, OConnor, supervisor of the carpentry shop at the hospital, worked with his team to make adjustments to intubation boxes placed over patients who need a tube inserted to help them breathe. The original boxes didnt provide enough coverage for doctors and nurses exposed to a patients infectious respiratory droplets as they performed the procedure. His team also built rooms for donning and doffing PPE in a safe environment. Read his entire story.
Were in the background, doing things to make things safer for the doctors, nurses and other health care workers and staffers, he says. Thats why were here.
Dr. Josh Mugele
As New York City became the coronavirus epicenter, Mugele, an emergency medicine physician in Georgia, felt it was his duty to help in any way he could. This, for him, meant boarding a plane and heading straight into the line of fire, volunteering at one of the citys hard-hit public hospitals. While there, he treated many patients, including one of the hospitals own nurses whod fallen ill with COVID-19. One of his goals was to learn as much as he could about how best to treat COVID-19, so he could bring those lessons back to his hometown hospital. By the time he returned to Georgia, cases were climbing sharply. Read his story.
This is going to take a long time, he says. Were going to have to change the way we live, the way we practice medicine and the way we make policies for years to come.
Jody Mugele
Before Mugeles husband, Dr. Josh Mugele, left to volunteer on the COVID-19 front lines in New York, the couple went through what they call the death document. A ritual they started before Dr. Mugeles disaster medicine fellowship in Liberia in 2013 during the Ebola outbreak, the document contains anything she may need in the case of his death, along with letters he wrote to her and their two kids. He was gone for nearly a month before safely returning. Read her story.
It really was the loneliest I think Ive ever felt, says Jody. I was talking to the dogs like theyre my best friends.
Jeanette Trella
Back in February, when calls started trickling into the Poison Control Call Center Trella manages at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, she knew it was just the beginning. Her team is usually the first to hear about medical emergencies before they grow bigger. Sensing then that COVID-19 would pick up steam, she raced to launch the Greater Philadelphia Coronavirus Help Line, which has helped advise callers on everything from symptoms to economic woes tied to the pandemic. Read her entire story.
We often get calls about dangerous trends right when theyre starting.
Dr. Steven Brown
For 20 nights a month, Brown monitors as many as 100 patients a night virtually from a command station now in his living room. A pulmonologist for Mercy Virtual Care Center, he helps on-the-ground clinicians like nurses and respiratory therapists care for patients with COVID-19, often in rural areas that need support and guidance. Through his screens he has made tough decisions and seen many people die once, three in one hour. However, he is hopeful that once researchers discover more about the virus weak spots, a vaccine will be created. Read his story.
If we listen to scientists, accept facts and make educated decisions based on the best available data, we will be able to drive down the number of cases of COVID-19.
Mary Beth Patterson
Patterson thought shed left her days as a nurse behind her when she retired over a year ago to move to New Hampshire. But when Stony Brook University Medical Center, her old stomping grounds and the same hospital where her daughter works as a nurse, started seeing an influx in COVID-positive patients, she made the decision to come out of retirement to help. Read her story.
I just felt compelled to come back to work and be alongside my daughter during this pandemic.
Kelly Patterson
When her mom made the decision to come out of retirement and return to nursing during the pandemic, Kelly Patterson was initially nervous. A young nurse at Stony Brook Medical Center, just a few years out of school, Patterson worried that her moms age would be a risk factor. During the height of the crisis, she was glad to have her moms knowledge of patient care and empathy skills more important now than ever. Though they work opposite shifts Kelly at night and her mom during the day she stops by to see her at the beginning and end of each shift. Read Kellys entire story.
Youre seeing death almost every shift, Kelly says. Its not a soothing, comfortable death. Theyre not accompanied by their loved ones, not able to see them or talk to them. Its very sad.
Felix Khusid
A veteran respiratory therapist at New York Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist, Khusid sees patients at the terrifying height of the disease, when they feel like their lungs are filled with water. His job then becomes to do whatever he can to help them stay alive, ideally without a ventilator. This sometimes includes high-flow therapy, which pushes concentrated levels of oxygen into the body and helps patients breathe on their own for longer. Read his entire story.
During this epidemic, what was really emphasized I think for the whole world is the expert job that the respiratory therapists are doing, he says. Its a profound responsibility that has profound consequences.
Dr. Gregg Rosner
Rosners experience as a cardiac intensivist at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center didnt necessarily prepare him to treat patients with a disease that primarily attacks the lungs. However, when the pandemic struck his hospital, he stepped up to lead the COVID-19 intensive care unit. In the beginning, the ICU team faced many unknowns, including how best to wear PPE to protect themselves. Rosner set the tone for his new team. I couldnt be scared. I couldnt be unsure, he says. We had a team with an impossible task and I was amazed at how everyone in the hospital stepped up. Read his story.
The coronavirus affected everyone of all races and all ages; people who were sick before and people who werent sick before, Rosner says.
Erica Harris
Erica Harris has been a nurse at NYC Health + Hospitals Elmhurst in Queens for 20 years, and shes never seen anything like the novel coronavirus before. Harris leads the hospitals COVID-19 testing tent which, at opening hour, rarely sees lines of fewer than 15 to 20 people, mostly the working-class immigrants her hospital serves. The outdoor tent met the overwhelming need for increased testing and took teamwork to create the negative pressure rooms inside it that keep virus particles from flowing everywhere. Read her entire story.
Once you faced the challenge and the last two months have been a challenge you feel stronger on the other side.
Dr. Vonzella Bryant
One of Bryants first COVID-positive patients at Boston Medical Center came in with an oxygen level of 75% far outside the normal range of 95% to 100%. In an effort to prevent intubation, Bryant, an emergency medicine physician, turned him over onto his stomach, a technique called proning. Luckily, the patients levels went back up to normal. Bryant and her family may have seen one of the earlier cases of the virus at home when her mother, who lives with the family, returned from vacation with telltale symptoms. After recovering and quarantining for 14 days, her mother now takes care of Bryants two kids, as Bryant juggles work on the front lines. Read her full story.
At the hospital, we were being hit all at once with sick, agitated and sometimes combative patients; scared and nervous essential workers; staff with underlying conditions who were afraid of getting the virus; and we were fearful that wed run out of ICU space.
Dr. Yinan Lan
When coronavirus patients started flooding into NYC Health + Hospitals Bellevue, Lan, a primary care physician, knew from her already extensive work with the homeless population in the city that things would be even worse for those who lived in shelters or on the streets. Her team set up a system to keep track of patients and ensure they have a place to stay, enough food and medication, and are as healthy as possible especially during this time of uncertainty. Read her story.
When theres a will to do that, it takes everyone not just a city agency, not just a few nonprofit organizations or hospitals.
Bre Loughlin
One-half of the nursing duo that developed virtual coronavirus screening for the single womens shelter at the Salvation Army Dane County in Madison, Wisconsin, Loughlin came up with the idea when she visited a mens shelter and talked to workers. They described the challenges in screening guests for the virus, including the gap in knowledge of lay volunteers who werent equipped to properly screen for the disease. With the help of donated tablets, a Wi-Fi hotspot and volunteer nurses, the first virtual screening at the shelter began. Read Loughlins entire story.
We had to think about at what point we would bring people into the trailer, maintain distancing, where we would place the PPE. All of that was part of the design of the screening we were able to pop up in 48 hours.
Tracy Zvenyach
The other half of the nursing duo that developed virtual screening for homeless shelters in Madison, Wisconsin, Zvenyach has seen a lot of grateful people come through the testing centers, especially since the team makes it a priority to guarantee housing for the night no matter the outcome of the test. Read her entire story.
One of the most daunting things about the pandemic is that, while we have our essential front-line workers, theres this enormous secondary front line in the community.
Dr. Dominic Carollo
Carollo, an anesthesiologist at Ochsner Medical Center in Louisiana, knows firsthand what his COVID-19 patients endure. Almost a week after he started working in the COVID intensive care ward, he developed a dry cough. Hed caught the virus. When his symptoms started to get scary, he relied on his medical training and buckled up for a one-on-one battle with COVID-19. I put an IV in and I gave myself 2 liters of fluid, he says. Almost two weeks later, his symptoms were gone and he went right back to treating patients. Read Carollos full story.
Every COVID shift that I could work is one less exposure for one of my colleagues.
Dr. Kyle Annen
In March, Annen, the medical director of transfusion services and patient blood management at Childrens Hospital Colorado, received a call about a critically ill adult patient with COVID-19, whose family urgently wanted their loved one to get a transfusion of convalescent plasma. They had heard that plasma from people who had recovered from COVID-19 may help. Other centers werent equipped to snap into action, so Annens team raced to launch a massive effort. In only a few weeks, they collected enough plasma donations for more than 150 patients. Read Annens entire story.
I think people who had COVID want to help, Annen says. They feel its a way they can make a direct impact to help someone who had it worse than they did.
Jessica Hawks
When the pandemic hit the U.S., the Pediatric Mental Health Institute at Childrens Hospital Colorado stopped offering in-person visits to prevent the spread of COVID-19. So Hawks, the clinical director of outpatient services, and her team pivoted to provide behavioral health care via telehealth to ensure kids with everything from eating disorders to depression didnt experience a lapse in care. Though there were privacy concerns and technology barriers to contend with, Hawks and her teammates got the program up and running. Read her story.
It was very clear that (telehealth services) was something wed need to offer to our patients and their families during this stressful time.
Pat Givens
As PPE shortages plague hospitals, Pat Givens, the chief nursing executive at Childrens Hospital Colorado, and her colleagues developed a system to track gear such as N95 masks and gowns. Their work ensured that even amidst a global shortage, the hospital would not run out of protective necessities. Read Givens entire story.
Because of our early tracking and conservation measures, we never ran out. Weve been able to sustain our PPE throughout the pandemic.
Rubiela Guzman
Guzman heads up a team of 43 patient transporters at Mount Sinai Hospital. Theyre charged with moving patients quickly and safely from place to place. When the pandemic engulfed New York City, their role turned somber: wheeling patients who didnt survive COVID-19 onto refrigerated trucks when the morgue became full. Read Guzmans entire story.
The hardest part was just dealing with the overwhelming amount of patients that were passing away, Guzman says. And understanding that this was real. This is not a drill. This is not a movie,
Jessica Montanaro
Montanaro, the assistant nursing coordinator at Mount Sinai Morningside, knew emergencies like the back of her hand after years working in the hospitals medical-trauma intensive care unit. In March, however, the numbers of patients coming into her department were unlike anything shed seen before. Still, she found herself uniquely prepared for COVID-19. For the past few years, her team has been perfecting the proning technique, now widely used to help COVID patients in serious respiratory distress. Read her story.
What I was seeing, what I was experiencing, you couldnt process it. You just had to keep moving.
Christopher Wilkinson
When his manager in the bone marrow transplant unit came to Wilkinson and his colleagues to enlist them in a new program at Mount Sinai that would give gravely ill COVID-19 patients an experimental stem cell therapy, Wilkinson volunteered immediately. Though dangerous, the possibility of helping the sickest patients drew him in. The trial has shown early promise in COVID patients Wilkinson is a member of the first team in the country to use this treatment. Read his entire story.
Yes, its dangerous. Yes, we have to be careful [] I felt like it was my duty to help.
Dr. Joseph Herrera
Before COVID-19, he was a thriving sports medicine doctor. When confronted with the deadly virus, Herrera, chair of the department of rehabilitation at Mount Sinai Health System, and his department transitioned their unit into a 90-bed COVID care space. Herrera was nervous: He hadnt worked a ventilator in almost 20 years. So, he spent every waking hour not at work studying everything he could to prepare for all the unknowns. The disease was fierce, taking the lives of many patients. He worries about the safety of his wife, an anesthesiologist on the front lines in New Jersey, and his medical residents, who were redeployed to hard-hit hospitals around the city. Read his entire story.
Its just heartbreaking to hear the fear and the exhaustion and the grieving they are going through. He says: Our young doctors. Our future.
Dr. Jonathan Ramin
Ramin, a fourth-year physical rehabilitation and medicine resident at Mount Sinai, volunteered to redeploy at one of New York Citys hardest hit public hospitals. He had never experienced anything like the COVID-19 ICU. He cared for otherwise healthy people his own age and didnt know if they would live or die. However, fear often leads to hope Ramin has used his training to help rehabilitate patients recovering from the new disease. Read his full story.
Sometimes, no matter what we did for these patients no matter how young they were, no matter how healthy they were, they werent immune to this.
Dr. Michael Bell
Bell, chief of critical care medicine at Childrens National, didnt believe for a second that the novel coronavirus didnt affect children, which was rumored in the early days. Since the pandemic began, he and his team have worked around the clock, treating more than 275 kids and young adults with COVID-19. When kids started coming to the hospital with symptoms of a new mystery syndrome seemingly linked to COVID-19, his team was ready. As multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) continued to affect children, Bell worked with teams across the country and the world to discover more. Read his story.
Its important to talk to every hospital we can find every hour of the day so we can collaborate and share information with them. We need lots of people to keep looking at it, to keep reporting it basically in real time.
Anna Stroman
When the pandemic hit Maryland, Anna Stroman, a chaplain with Doctors Community Hospital, immediately recognized a need to provide hospital employees with an outlet for stress. She created a virtual prayer line for stretched-thin front-line workers to call for a listening ear or uplifting prayer. Doctors and nurses also email in prayer requests for their seriously ill patients with COVID-19. With strict visitor restrictions in place, Stroman has found it difficult to not be able to comfort patients at their bedside. Read her full story.
Just this whole season of not being able to personally go into a patients room and sit there and talk with them is difficult. Most times, patients just want you to listen.
Diondre McBride
Though still a trainee through the Healthcare Chaplains Ministry Association, McBride is determined to pray over patients even if hes swathed in PPE and behind a barrier. Although he cannot be at their bedside, he remains committed to providing peace and light to patients, their families and hospital staff during this unprecedented time. Read his full story.
They asked me: Was I willing to put myself at risk to be chaplain during this COVID-19? I said, This is what I do. And Ive been doing it ever since.
Dr. Stephen Kates
Running out of PPE, especially N95 masks, was one of the main issues that Kates and a committee of colleagues at VCU Health in Virginia set out to address when the virus hit their hospital. Kates, chair of orthopedic surgery, used his metalworking hobby to come up with a heavy duty metal shelf that would hold a high volume of masks to allow for mass disinfection with high-intensity ultraviolet light. The system has sterilized 20,000 masks, which means the hospital hasnt run out of this necessary protective gear. Read his story.
Im happy to be able to help others with this, he says. Thats why I went into medicine, to help others.
Dr. Neal Shipley
Soon after COVID-19 flooded New York City closing many doctors offices Shipley, medical director of 52 Northwell Health-GoHealth Clinics, saw an influx of patients with fevers, upper respiratory distress and fatigue. In response, he and his staff developed a system for knowing when to send patients home, when to treat them and when to send them to the emergency room. In the first two months of the pandemic, a third of the approximately 20,000 patients coming into the urgent care centers tested positive for COVID-19. Shipleys urgent care centers are seeing high demand for both virus and antibody testing. Read his story.
When theres a second wave, if we dont have a better strategy for testing and contact tracing, I worry that all of the sacrifice will be for naught and we will be right back where we started.
Rev. Kris Pikaart
Rev. Kris Pikaart, a hospital chaplain in Gallup, New Mexico, has never worked harder than during her hours and days spent in the COVID unit. Many of the hospitals patients are residents of the Navajo Nation a community thats been hit hard by the virus, largely due to the widespread lack of running water and other resources. Pikaart, who has only taken a few days off since March, offers comfort to patients and their families, doing what she can to make this unprecedented time less awful and lonely. Read her entire story.
I have a goal that nobody here dies alone, ever, Pikaart says. I cant always make that happen because this disease is funny and its not always predictable how deaths from the disease are sometimes they happen so quickly.
Ashley Holsman
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Fear, Courage, Grit: Meet More Than 50 'Hospital Heroes' - WTOP