Health

22 HE ALTH • Summer 2020 Fighting COVID, no matter what T he emergency department staff at Milford Regional Medical Center typically prepares for a shift including patients seeking care for car accidents, heart attacks, or the rare mass casualty inci- dent. No staff members had expe- rienced a pandemic, like with col- leagues at hospitals virtually every- where, forcing a medical response of an unprecedented length and severity. Milford Regional – which at its peak had more than four dozen inpatient coronavirus patients – was led in large part by Dr. Jeff Hopkins, the surge chief for the pandemic. How would you describe what the last few months have been like? It's certainly an unprecedented time. We've never seen anything like this in our careers. In emergency medicine, this is exactly what we prepare for: a response to handle whatever situation comes our way. There are usually things on a lower-magnitude scale, like mass casualty incidents, but those tend to be very time-specific. We prepare for times like that. Those are smaller- scale examples of what we typically deal with on a day-to-day basis. This is something that's just such a higher magnitude response that was more dif- ficult than we ever expected. What has the hospital's response been like? We totally transformed the emer- gency department. We created an alternative treatment area, one we for- tunately didn't have to utilize. But the amount of time that went into creating the safest environment, it was inspir- ing to see how people came together. There weren't people running away from this – they were running to it. They were saying, "How can I help?" They're putting themselves at risk and putting their families at risk. A lot of providers brought a lot home with them from the pandemic, which was difficult to process while you're actual- ly in the thick of it. How difficult was it for medical providers to treat coronavirus patients? The patients we were seeing were arriving with much more complex pre- sentations. Nurses in our hot zones were suited up in personal protective equipment for their whole shift, or they would spend half their shift there and switch with someone. Everyone put on their game face and showed up every day, and managed patients no matter the circumstances. You sort of get that adrenaline rush, that it's time to take care of whatever patients come in the door. This was a bigger challenge, but it goes along with our mentality of treat- ing anyone no matter what, 24/7/365. I never saw any hesitation. How have providers dealt with the pandemic emotionally? There's a higher concentration of that need to decompress. We've set up a wellness committee at Milford, with Zoom calls with our colleagues in intensive care, and primary care pro- viders and caregivers in the communi- ty and specialists who may not be directly involved in emergency care. We've talked about burnout and pro- viding wellness to the provider com- munity at Milford. Dealing with end-of-life issues has been a part of it. I had a case, a man in his 80s who came in unresponsive and was put on comfort-measures only. I spoke to his family through FaceTime on an iPad. They had to say goodbye that way. In some ways it was reward- ing to come up with some solution to have family members have some com- munication, but it was difficult. It wasn't the traditional way of having family members there, but patients weren't alone. Do you worry about post-traumatic stress symptoms for providers? It's gained a lot more traction recent- ly. A lot of solutions have been put in place. At our hospital, we have an exer- cise challenge to all providers to encourage people to get out and get exercise, and develop teams to take your mind off the day-to-day grind of taking care of really sick patients. There will be long-term effects of this pandemic we don't even know about. Worrying about bringing home an illness to your family – usually you can just leave work at work. But you're doing that now, or second guessing yourself more. This interview has been edited and con- densed by Worcester Business Journal News Editor Grant Welker. PHOTO/COURTESY H Dr. Jeff Hopkins, Chair of department of emergency medicine Milford Regional Medical Center P r o v i d e r P r o f i l e

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