Hospital emergency rooms are chaotic in normal times. Try being an emergency medicine resident during a pandemic.<\/p>\n
As the nation\u2019s healthcare system deals with COVID-19, UCF-HCA Healthcare physicians in residency training find themselves on the front lines of a novel virus and new ways of learning and caring for patients.<\/p>\n
Emergency medicine residents have had to master \u201cdonning\u201d and \u201cdoffing\u201d complicated personal protective equipment so they don\u2019t infect themselves or others. They have watched COVID-19 cause devastating illness to patients of all ages. Due to hospital visitor restrictions, they have counseled terrified family members isolated in a hospital parking lot waiting for word on their sickened loved one. Psychiatry residents are helping veterans combat drug and alcohol addiction when social distancing prohibits them from gathering for 12-step meetings. They are guiding patients who struggle with anxiety and depression during the best of times and now must cope with COVID-19 stressors like fear of being exposed to the virus while buying groceries and losing their jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are facing something no one has ever faced before.\u201d – Michelle Hernandez, emergency medicine resident<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cWe are facing something no one has ever faced before,\u201d says emergency medicine resident Michelle Hernandez. \u201cI\u2019m working alongside attending physicians who have been doing this for 30 years and have never seen anything like this. So we\u2019re learning side by side.\u201d<\/p>\n
UCF is training more than 450 residents and fellows across Central and North Central Florida in partnership with HCA Healthcare\u2019s North Florida Division, the Orlando VA Medical Center and Nemours Children\u2019s Hospital. Medical school graduates must complete residency training in their specialties before they can care for patients on their own. Because much of residency training is hospital-based, UCF\u2019s young doctors and their training physicians are learning together how to treat this novel virus.<\/p>\n
One of the lessons, residents say, it managing their fears as they care for others. Jessica Houck, an emergency medicine resident at Osceola Regional Medical Center, has a three-year-old son. The toddler and Houck\u2019s husband returned to Kentucky to stay with family rather than risk being infected by their physician wife and mother. Another EM resident had been living with his sister and her child \u2013 his beloved niece \u2013 but moved in with another resident to reduce the risk to his family.<\/p>\n
Dhara Shah is a UCF psychiatry resident. Her family lives in New York City \u2013 the epicenter of the nation\u2019s COVID-19 outbreak. She worries about them as she worries about her patients at the Orlando VA Medical Center who are struggling to overcome addiction in the middle of a pandemic. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are cornerstones of addiction therapy. But social distancing means veterans can\u2019t gather to seek guidance from others battling substance abuse. Instead, they work through their therapy online and through programs on YouTube.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have persevered,\u201d she says. \u201cI have told several of my vets that their self-motivation and discipline are helping them get through this.\u201d<\/p>\n
She notices some of her patients have used their time in isolation to finally realize they need help and to seek it. Some have found it\u2019s easier to quit smoking when they are living under stay-at-home guidelines and can\u2019t dash to the store to buy cigarettes. Others are smoking more as they struggle with anxiety. \u201cI worry about my veterans,\u201d she says. \u201cI start every telehealth meeting with the question, \u2018How are you maintaining your sanity?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Amid the fears of COVID-19, UCF psychiatry resident Hassan Kanani says he has tried to offer perspective to his patients \u2013 to help them see there are alternatives if they are afraid to go to the store for food, that their home and the hospital are indeed safe places. His words of guidance seem wise for everyone going through the pandemic: \u201cWe all need to look for the gems in difficult times.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Lebowitz leads UCF\u2019s emergency medicine residency program at Osceola Regional Medical Center. He says when COVID-19 began, physician educators worried about having residents care for patients suspected of having the virus. But they determined that senior residents \u2013 those in their last year or two of training \u2013 needed to participate in COVID-19 care. \u201cThey need to be sure they\u2019re well prepared,\u201d he says. \u201cSome of these residents are going to graduate in two-and-a-half months and we don\u2019t know when this will end.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says the pandemic has offered unique learning experiences that will ultimately make residents better able to cope with public health and other emergencies in the future. And he says that the community\u2019s support has also been an important message for the young physicians. Recently, Emergency Room physicians and staff were honored by Osceola County law enforcement, firefighters and ambulance drivers with their sirens on in recognition of the healthcare heroes on the front lines.<\/p>\n