sas5814 Posted March 17, 2020 Share Posted March 17, 2020 I will continue to go to work. The only reason I wouldn't is if my administration intentionally did something foolish or dangerous. If they can't get PPE because it simply isn't available really wouldn't qualify for me. I understand peoples concerns and fears. I spent an entire career in the military and 4 years in law enforcement. Not having alcohol gel doesn't rise to that level of concern for me. I am reasonably young and healthy so I feel the risk to me is at least managable. It isn't for many of my patients. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator ventana Posted March 17, 2020 Moderator Share Posted March 17, 2020 such a tough topic in order to care for my patients in the future I need to be in the future in order for the health care system to not collapse we need to have health providers and enough of them How this plays out is scary - no john wayne heroics needed, instead very purposefully actions I am no longer in the ER - but if this truly become an widespread and the ER is a viral bomb I would say I would insist on full PPE and if they did not provide it I would decline to work. It is not just yourself, but your family, and you future ability to care for your patients whom will need you - we still need PCP's 6 and 12 months from now...... good PPE is essential - beyond that life is a risk.... 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cideous Posted March 17, 2020 Author Share Posted March 17, 2020 1 hour ago, ventana said: such a tough topic in order to care for my patients in the future I need to be in the future in order for the health care system to not collapse we need to have health providers and enough of them How this plays out is scary - no john wayne heroics needed, instead very purposefully actions I am no longer in the ER - but if this truly become an widespread and the ER is a viral bomb I would say I would insist on full PPE and if they did not provide it I would decline to work. It is not just yourself, but your family, and you future ability to care for your patients whom will need you - we still need PCP's 6 and 12 months from now...... good PPE is essential - beyond that life is a risk.... Well said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenmood Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 A family member of mine works in the ED and has been given a single N95 mask to reuse... indefinitely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cideous Posted March 18, 2020 Author Share Posted March 18, 2020 39 minutes ago, greenmood said: A family member of mine works in the ED and has been given a single N95 mask to reuse... indefinitely. Criminal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boli Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 (edited) I graduate in August (maybe? they've suspended our rotations for now so who knows). I am little late to the party but my answer is "no". I love medicine and the mental stimulus I get from working in it. I take a lot of contentment out of helping people and improving QOL and hopefully length of life too. But I have too much to lose to cash in that way. Maybe I don't care enough, but at the end of the day it's a job. My family isn't replaceable. This whole crisis has helped me frame what type of jobs I'll be looking for once I graduate (surgical specialties/rheum/cards/onc) Edited March 19, 2020 by boli 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sas5814 Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 (edited) Because this is such a dynamic process and recommendations and processes are shifting so quickly it has been hard to determine exactly what our organizations response is going to be. I was told because of my age my medical director wanted me asigned to our "healthy clinic" rather that one of the clinics doing COVID screening. Now I'm 60 and healthy as a horse. I discussed it with my wife, told her I though that was BS, and I wanted the organization to protect people with young families and single paycheck households rather than trying to protect me (who doesn't really need protecting). She asked where my will was and the life insurance policies and told me to go for it. She's a good woman. I told my administrator and med director and they just smiled and said "ok". Let me add that while I'm in no hurry to embrace the great beyond I'm not fearful of death either. I doubt it will come to that but if it does....well it does. Edited March 19, 2020 by sas5814 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GetMeOuttaThisMess Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 Scott, at least we get to shop early before the young ones now.Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UGoLong Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 I'm nearly 74 and today elected to stop rounding in hospitals and stop taking shifts with EMS twice a month. It makes me sad to leave my coworkers but the rough estimate of a 10% mortality estimate for my age is daunting. And the worse mistake I can think of would be to bring home the virus and cause the death of my wife of nearly 52 years. I lived through the early days of AIDS in EMS and remember being 10 feet tall and bulletproof (albeit double-gloved when starting IVs.) If I were younger, I'd still be out there now. But I'm not. It's a personal decision. Let's let people make it without adding pressure. I hope to be back in the trenches someday soon. 4 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cideous Posted March 18, 2020 Author Share Posted March 18, 2020 10 minutes ago, UGoLong said: I'm nearly 74 and today elected to stop rounding in hospitals and stop taking shifts with EMS twice a month. It makes me sad to leave my coworkers but the rough estimate of a 10% mortality estimate for my age is daunting. And the worse mistake I can think of would be to bring home the virus and cause the death of my wife of nearly 52 years. I lived through the early days of AIDS in EMS and remember being 10 feet tall and bulletproof (albeit double-gloved when starting IVs.) If I were younger, I'd still be out there now. But I'm not. It's a personal decision. Let's let people make it without adding pressure. I hope to be back in the trenches someday soon. I think I speak for most here when I say that we all absolutely respect your decision to sit this one out. At the end of the day, with your age and experience, we will need you when all this is over. Please stay healthy and enjoy a little personal time with your wonderful wife of 52 years. Thank you for posting. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohiovolffemtp Posted March 19, 2020 Share Posted March 19, 2020 62 - still going to work. 3 reasons: Health is pretty good and I believe that with sufficient care I can minimize my chance of contracting COVID-19 I cover 1/2 of the night shifts in my ED - as the only provider in my critical access hospital. If I don't work, there's not really anyone else. In the past month or so, my retirement accounts have lost ~ 25% of their value. While I believe it will come back, right now I'm no longer in the position where I could retire. My wife is one of these people who never gets sick. So, if I have to quarantine in another part of the house, I'm pretty comfortable she'll be fine. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted March 19, 2020 Moderator Share Posted March 19, 2020 At 51 I am one of the younger providers everywhere I work and am already getting hit up for "on call sick coverage" if some of our older docs need to spend some time recovering at home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reality Check 2 Posted March 19, 2020 Share Posted March 19, 2020 I realized the other day why COVID19 has bothered me so much. I am over 50 now and very mortal. I am being faced for the first time in my life with a disease that could actually kill me - a disease worse than meningitis and C.Diff, MRSA, even influenza and more likely to touch me than Ebola. When I was just out of school in my 20s and didn't know yet about my autoimmune issues and my asthma wasn't very bad then - I was rearing to go and would be suited up in trauma without a thought. Now I work in an environment where I am not first line exposure and I am pretty ok with it. This is a novel disease - not in man before - we just don't know everything we need to know about it and can't know it all right away. We are a global community with data capacity that is overwhelming - fed from the firehose with ever changing information and conflicting information. The data overload in itself can be frightening. We are also in a time of poor leadership plagued by deflection, outright lies and no reliance on science or facts. Who to trust? CDC, WHO, Johns Hopkins.... Rush Limbaugh........................ Folks in my town are not behaving very well. Either complete panic and hoarding food and goods - muggings in parking lots for groceries - or they are brusque and cavalier spouting conspiracy theories and basically contacting everything they can touch without a second thought. So, I feel vulnerable. I don't want to expose my family - I don't want to be exposed myself - selfish or not. I am at work, seeing only a few patients face to face and only after they insist. Most of my patients aren't trying to come in to be seen. I am not fully confident in my environment. I do feel compelled to do whatever it takes to stem the spread and flatten out the curve because it works and other countries have proven it. So, I would stand in front of a train for my kids and go to lengths to support patients but I am not ready to do dumb things with this virus. 5 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cideous Posted March 19, 2020 Author Share Posted March 19, 2020 ^^^. Well said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cideous Posted March 28, 2020 Author Share Posted March 28, 2020 On 3/1/2020 at 5:50 AM, FiremedicMike said: HIV, Ebola, bird flu, swine flu, west Nile, SARS, zika virus.. the list goes on. We've all managed to survive all of those “outbreaks” just fine... I refuse to spend one ounce of energy getting caught up in this mass hysteria that the media is fueling over coronavirus. Frankly - we’re more likely to get killed in a crash on the way to work.. Still think it's mass hysteria that the media is "fueling" over coronavirus? When I started this thread I was somewhat ridiculed for "over-hyping" CV-19 and the risks we were all getting ready to take. Well guess what...that time is now here, and as providers are starting to get sick and some are dying, this thread seems a lot more relevant. What a difference a few weeks makes..... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FiremedicMike Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 3 hours ago, Cideous said: Still think it's mass hysteria that the media is "fueling" over coronavirus? When I started this thread I was somewhat ridiculed for "over-hyping" CV-19 and the risks we were all getting ready to take. Well guess what...that time is now here, and as providers are starting to get sick and some are dying, this thread seems a lot more relevant. What a difference a few weeks makes..... I'm withholding most of my opinion these days because I get viciously attacked for them. I will say that I feel the numbers of confirmed covid cases are a small fraction of the actual number of people on the planet who have been exposed/infected, in which case I feel the mortality rate compared to infected persons is dramatically lower than it's being portrayed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sas5814 Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 I think that is a valid point. I'm in the middle of this mess working at a UC that is testing 25-30 people a day in addition to the people going to the drive through in the parking lot outside the front door. This thing is very real but given the high variability of symptoms including people who are infected and have little to no symptoms you are probably right. The near hysteria surrounding it and the media constantly fanning the flames of paranoia makes rational discussion hard sometimes. Over hype or not we have to deal with what is actually happening. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cideous Posted March 28, 2020 Author Share Posted March 28, 2020 ^^^ Prayers of quick recovery for your wife Scott. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.