What goes through the mind of an ER doctor
By Nicholas Johnson / For The Conversation
Inside, as usual, patient beds are near capacity, and the emergency department is filled with not only the usual mix of patients with trauma, stroke, chest pain and other concerns, but also dozens of people worried they might have COVID-19.
I am an emergency and critical care physician who cares for patients in the emergency department and intensive care units at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, a public hospital with 413 beds owned by King County and staffed by doctors from the University of Washington School of Medicine.
UW Medicine has seen dozens of COVID-19 cases since the first patient arrived here in late February.
Everything feels different in the hospital now. Door entrances are locked, streets outside are quiet, the building feels empty given the lack of visitors and outpatients but also bustling with a different kind of energy.
As emergency and critical care doctors and nurses, we think about and train for these types of situations regularly, but nobody expects to be the epicenter of a pandemic in the U.S. But here we are, and as a result, my colleagues and I have been working to find out ways to help not only our patients but also other doctors around the country who will soon experience what we have, if they haven’t already.
The first question: Within a few days at Harborview, we went from normal operations in late February to thinking about how to protect ourselves, our colleagues and our patients with every encounter. Every time I see a new patient, the first question I ask myself, regardless of why they come in, is: “Could this be COVID-19?”
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