5 Years Since COVID: Lessons from the Frontlines, Pt. 1

On our first episode, host Leslie Schlachter, PA, Chief Physician Assistant in the Department of Neurosurgery, interviews two Mount Sinai physicians who worked on the front lines in the early days of the pandemic. 

Zevy Joshua Hamburger, MD, Associate Professor, Anesthesiology, Perioperative & Pain Medicine and Erik Blutinger, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Public Health Specialist talk about what it was like as the pandemic spread across the world and the response in New York City.  

Together, they discuss the challenge of treating patients despite a of lack of knowledge about the virus and the need to improvise treatments. They describe how they struggled to maintain their morale amid the long hours, lack of resources, and catastrophic losses. They also share perspectives on what health care institutions might have done differently. 

Chapters

• 0:46 Introductions: Zevy Joshua Hamburger, MD, Associate Professor, Anesthesiology, Perioperative & Pain Medicine; Erik Blutinger, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Public Health Specialist
• 2:00 Description of roles during the pandemic
• 3:22 Description of first days of the pandemic
• 4:10 Watching the spread of COVID-19 overseas before it appeared in the USA
• 5:00 Early preparations
• 5:20 Dr. Hamburger describes getting COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic
• 6:29 Learning from the experiences of international colleagues
• 7:39 The challenge of having enough resources to treat patients
• 7:56 The lack of knowledge as to how to treat patients effectively
• 8:31 Describing the pain of loved ones not being able to communicate with patients
• 8:49 Describing departments transitioning into caring for COVID patients
• 9:08 Caring for the “normal” patients giving birth and having procedures during COVID
• 10:08 Describing how the Rapid Response Team treated patients who were severely sick from COVID
• 12:00 Describing the challenges of working at an accelerated pace with no end in sight
• 12:15 The emotional challenges of keeping going when certain outside currents were minimizing the pandemic
• 14:25 The challenges of “self-isolating” when in many New York cultures multiple generations live under one roof
• 15:22 Exploring whether the medical community might have built more trust by acknowledging more that we were in uncharted waters
• 15:40 Describing the close-knit team approach of the Rapid Response Team built effectiveness and morale
• 17:20 Describing the long-lasting effects of fatigue from the pandemic
• 18:00 Utilizing the tool of journaling to keep grounded and retain a sense of purpose
• 18:36 Describing the personal cost of loved ones getting severely sick from COVID
• 19:00 Managing crisis is always going to be part of the health care profession; it’s necessary to find ways to cope with it
• 20:00 How COVID changed the way we practice medicine
• 22:40 The pros and cons of masking
• 28:23 The unwillingness of some of the public to abide by public health guidelines and how we could have managed it better