This is Ambika. She is an Internal Medicine Resident
“COVID-19 has dramatically changed the way we treat almost every single patient in hospital, whether COVID positive or not.
We have a low threshold to test admitted patients for COVID and as they await their test results, we limit face to face contact, blood work, imaging tests for the safety of everyone.
I was asked to see a patient in the emergency department who had come in with abdominal pain. He had a CT scan of his abdomen and it was unfortunately concerning for pancreatic cancer.
When I met him in the ER, he reached out his hand to me – I couldn’t shake it.
He asked if his wife could come – no visitors allowed. I offered to call her – she didn’t have a phone. I broke the news to him, alone, from a distance, behind a mask. It was 11 PM at night – on a normal day I would admit him to the hospital. Today I sent him home with a plan for follow up, to try to minimize his risk.
He asked me what his outpatient care would look like – I didn’t know.
The diseases are familiar but the care is foreign. I’m learning every day how to care for patients in this new reality, and I feel for every patient who has to watch us relearn how to show our compassion.”
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