Boston Doctor On Coronavirus Frontlines: 'Like A Triage Officer In A War'
BOSTON (CBS) - It was an explosion of patients that critical care Doctor Carolyn D'Ambrosio had never seen before. "March 10 or 11 everything was fine," D'Ambrosio said. "A week or two later hundreds were in the hospital with coronavirus."
Even as the number of hospitalizations for the virus in Massachusetts steadily declines, she still describes war-like trauma unprecedented in her more than 20-year career. "This one is more like a triage officer in a war," she explained. "Have to go see what's acute, fix that and move onto the next patient."
The sheer volume of sick patients has meant both she and her staff in the ICU at Brigham and Women's Hospital have to move quickly to stabilize patients, and then she says the second-guessing comes. "You have great angst, what did I miss? If I had more time would I have caught something," she said.
Health care workers continue to go through some of the most heartbreaking moments of the pandemic, including losing the personal connection with patients' families. "I'm a hugger. I'm somebody who hugs a family member when telling them their loved one is not doing well, or after a loved one passed away," D'Ambrosio said. "I talk to them and put my arm around people, now it's a brief phone call and that doesn't feel right."
Typically, Dr. D'Ambrosio says she's not treating a lot of elderly patients considered the most vulnerable to the disease, but many in their fifties and sixties. She says death is an almost daily experience. "We have several deaths in a day sometimes," she said. "There was a day a few weeks ago where we had five deaths and that's really hard for everybody."
They try to lift each other up with inspiring messages of strength. Now two months into the crisis Dr. D'Ambrosio says they have learned a lot about treatment, but she says the medical community is bracing for the state's gradual reopening. "I do think from what I can tell it's going to ramp up again unless we have a vaccine or treatment by then," she said.
