Q: Can you describe your current employment?
A: I’m a pulmonary critical care physician, meaning my specialties are the lung and the ICU. So, I work in a hospital and I work about 12-hour shifts and then I go home and sleep for a little bit and come back for more.
Q: How was your workplace and medical specialty affected by COVID-19?
A: Drastically. Everyone that couldn’t breathe came to me.
Q: Was there a particular patient or day or week that stayed with you or was there something that scared or frightened or angered you during the first few months?
A: It was terrifying in general, right? There’s a virus, you don't know how it’s truly transmitted, you’re afraid to be near people, and then you go to work and it's the only thing you see the whole time. So, it’s pretty terrifying at first. And you haven’t gotten COVID, it’s been a month, you’ve seen all these people. They’ve sprayed you while intubating them and whatnot and you’ve somehow remained healthy. Your equipment works well; whatever you’re doing is working and you start getting a little more comfortable with it.
Let’s see...worst day? New Year's and the first two weeks of January. It was really exploding there—intubating, coding, declaring people dead—and there’s so many in the day, you're just like when will this end? Then there's another one, and there's another one, and you step out of the room and there’s another one. It was really exploding those few weeks. You're exhausted at the end of the day. It’s kind of like ‘oh great, I just look forward to when I come back,’ and ‘I hope, I hope some of these patients survive.’ There were a lot of conversations with families who didn't understand what was going on. They were losing their loved ones, and they were angry and sad at the same time so they would take out some things on you, because you weren’t necessarily able to cure this incurable disease that we had no treatments for at that time. It was pretty difficult, and then eventually the public eye became more aware of what was going on and a little more understanding. But yeah, those few weeks were pretty rough.
Q: How were you or your family personally impacted by COVID-19? Did you have a particular routine that you created or followed to de-stress or detach yourself from what you were seeing?
A: Yeah, so on March 11th we went on lockdown here in California, and then my daughter was born on the 21st. So, a young one the entire year was pretty interesting. I would see my routine itself was fairly unchanged, just because I was taking care of a child with my wife—who is also a physician—and I was coming home, switching off on duties, or not sleeping at night and then coming back to work. My routine was pretty much unaffected. I found that taking frequent walks with the stroller and getting a little bit of fresh air was very helpful. But I’d say my situation was different than most, because my year—even if there wasn’t a pandemic—would've been pretty much the same.
Q: How have things progressed in the last few months? Are you receiving fewer patients with COVID-19?
A: Yeah, we had a few weeks with no patients, which was pretty awesome. Of course with Memorial Day and people being around crowds, we’ve had a little bit of an uptick in cases and some of those similar conversations. Unfortunate events have started to recur, but it’s a lot better than what it used to be, I'll be honest.
Q: What are your hopes for a post-pandemic world?
A: I hope everyone comes out of this with a little bit more love and understanding about different people, and how different people approach their life and the way they do things. I hope we come out of this a little bit more caring for people in your direct family as well as people not in your family—like your neighbors—and just improve as a society that's kind of split down the middle right now. I would hope we come out of this awful pseudo-war a bit better for it.
Q: Is there anything you want future generations or future doctors to know about handling another pandemic?
A: It’s—you don’t really understand what it is to be a doctor or what it's like to work in a hospital until you actually do it, you know what I mean? Med school, clinicals—everything was so different from now, when you actually have that responsibility, that presence in the hospital. So I don't know if it's anything to say, like ‘be prepared’ or ‘expect this’ because you don't really know until you actually do it. The book is very different from real life. You don't treat people in real life the way the book necessarily recommends. A lot of people would like different things or other ways for something to be performed—there’s a lot of compromising and maneuvering and trying to determine the right course of action. But this is a society in the United States where you have a patient-centered approach, where you try to move forward with everyone on board. You encourage a treatment plan, a treatment strategy and not all the time are you going to go exactly the way you wanted. In the end, hopefully patients get better, and they go home. There’s a lot of compromise and a lot of experience.
So I would just say, if you’re going to be a doctor, it’s not to make the money. It’s because this is what you do, this is the only thing you can be. I couldn't be a lawyer, an accountant, or a salesman of sorts. I’ve only known biology and science, and I kind of fell into this. It just makes sense, you know? It's hard to explain. I would say, people know based on what their interests are growing up, getting your basic foundations. Like, are you a math person, are you a science person, are you a numbers person, are you an economics person, do you enjoy history? Everyone’s different, so everyone finds their own path in life. And of course, you change your ideas, you change your interests, so it’s a learning process. I didn't start off wanting to become a doctor; I started off wanting to become many other different things, and I eventually evolved into this. And then when you become a doctor, what kind of doctor do you want to be? It changes a lot—it depends on your interests, your passions, your mentors. So in a very roundabout way, I think I answered it.
Q: Are you planning to continue with your field?
A: Yes, definitely.