It was good to come into work today. Yesterday was Memorial Day and today is the first day of work for most people after the long weekend. I have been walking around with a temporary ID and hope to get a real one today. I am also down to my last set of home scrubs and hope to get scrubs from the scrubs machine on the 9th floor today.
I began to day by checking in with Dr. Z -- the Chair of Internal Medicine. After a brief welcome, I got my wish: I am assigned as the Attending Physician of 8200 -- the COVID ward! I shall spend the rest of my tour here.
Excitedly, I got my PPE and headed off to meet the team. I have a nurse practitioner, Judy Osuoha and an internal medicine intern (soon to be become a second year), Felix Filias. That's it: the 3 of us managing a 3rd of the COVID ward. We started out with 8 patients and got a 9th before the day was over.
Our cases were all interesting. They all had COVID and... One patient had renal and liver failure, another a gangrenous foot, another advanced SLE and so forth. There were some medical mysteries which were fun to tease apart. Nobody dying (yet?).
The day went by quickly.
I should say something about Brooklyn and Woodhull. It is VERY diverse: the doctors, nurses, patients and people out on the streets have so many different accents, languages and ethnic origins. A patient I saw yesterday spoke only Polish and we struggled with a phone interpreter who could not make out what the patient was saying as his speech was slurred from alcohol. I happily chatted in Spanish with several of my patients. The place is a little global community.
So far, I feel well. I have intermittently had a little cough and some nose sniffing but these symptoms resolve. Lots of hand washing and putting on and putting off PPE. Reminds me a little of Sierra Leone, but not as bleak.
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