COVID-19: Voices From the Community

Recent Posts

Recovering From COVID-19: What I Learned as a Physician and as a Patient
June 15, 2021 - A critical care physician on the COVID-19 front lines reflects on his experience and the biggest lesson he learned from the pandemic: That the work doesn’t end when a patient survives their ICU stay. That’s when the hard work starts.
Working to Reduce Vaccine Hesitancy
May 05, 2021 - There are reasons to believe that vaccinating the second half of the US population will be challenging, due to a high degree of vaccine hesitancy among our patients and our fellow health care workers. Here’s how the clinical community can help overcome vaccine hesitancy.
Being a Part of Something Bigger Than Ourselves
April 23, 2021 - The COVID-19 pandemic has put a tremendous psychological strain on health care workers. A spiritual care provider and a neurointensivist share how they worked together to support their teammates and their patients.
CHEST’s COVID-19 Task Force – The Secrets Behind Our Success
April 21, 2021 - As COVID-19 spread throughout the world, a new CHEST task force brought clinicians from multiple subspecialties together with a common purpose: To create, curate, and distribute knowledge about this new, deadly disease. How did the team pull it off?
How COVID-19 Turned Our Hospital—and Patients—Upside Down
April 08, 2021 - As the volume of patients requiring proning at a Chicago hospital drastically increased, a multidisciplinary group came together to create a new “Prone Team.” A respiratory therapist shares how the team improved care for their patients.
Medical Publishing in a COVID-19 World: How the Journal CHEST Adapted and Evolved
March 30, 2021 - This experience has reaffirmed the need for scholarly publications to filter content through review, exposed processes that impact the ease of submission and timeliness of review, and strengthened our understanding of the need to digest and communicate content in varied and creative ways.
What It’s Like to Be a Postgraduate Trainee in a Pandemic
March 02, 2021 - The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted physicians-in-training in several ways, affecting their on-the-job training requirements and their protected time for learning. One trainee shares his experience.
How APPs Helped Bridge the Staffing Gap During the COVID-19 Crisis
February 05, 2021 - Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, one small community hospital struggled with resignations and physicians becoming ill. The establishment of their ICU nurse practitioner program proved to be a key factor in maintaining the unit and providing care during this expansion in demand.
Life as a Critical Care Physician on the USS Nimitz
January 22, 2021 - The men and women of the US military face unique challenges in carrying out their missions during the COVID-19 pandemic. A critical care physician on board a naval aircraft carrier shares his experience preparing for a potential outbreak and coping with the stressors of a long deployment at sea.
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
January 04, 2021 - With hospitals prohibiting visitors and many patients with COVID-19 unable to communicate with their care teams, it has become more difficult to learn about the people we are caring for—who they are and what makes them unique. As clinicians navigate this changed landscape, we must find new ways to create connections with our patients.
COVID-19 as Seen From the Other Side: A Physician’s Experience Contracting the Virus
December 29, 2020 - When a doctor contracted COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic, she realized just how fine the line separating clinicians from patients really is—and that her job was about much more than simply knowing how to make a diagnosis or offer a treatment.
Clinical Aspects of Expanding an ECMO Program During a Pandemic
November 25, 2020 - The demand for ECMO therapy has exponentially increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. What does it take to expand an ECMO program in these circumstances? Teamwork, coordination, and...a playbook.
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on COPD
November 23, 2020 - The COVID-19 pandemic led to increased risks in patients with COPD and created challenges in caring for this patient population. There is a dire need for the establishment of effective virtual programs and inclusive care.
How Far We Have Come
November 13, 2020 - As COVID-19 cases rise across the country, clinicians will need to prepare for even more challenges. But it seems that this next wave will be different than the first.
Trainees on the Front Lines
November 02, 2020 - Since the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, our trainees have been provided with a unique opportunity to learn and manage a novel disease, along with a firsthand look at how our health-care system can adapt to new challenges. The relationship between mentees and mentors has never been more important than during these unusual learning times.
COVID-19 and the Impact on Junior Medical Students
October 26, 2020 - With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, medical students were thrown into a world of uncertainty, with delayed exams and rescheduled rotations. But these unique challenges could add to their resilience and problem-solving abilities moving forward.
Breathing Easier During COVID-19: Hyperbaric Hoods in the ICU
October 01, 2020 - As the COVID-19 pandemic surged, clinicians faced challenges in providing respiratory support for critically ill patients. One team came up with an innovative, yet inexpensive and easy solution that helped prevent the need for intubation purely for hypoxia.
COVID-19 and a Mother's Love: The Healing Power of Family
September 21, 2020 - A young patient with COVID-19 was not improving after weeks of treatment—so the hospital took extraordinary efforts to allow his mother to safely visit. The experience showed one physician the healing power of a family’s love.
Lessons Learned: How the Cystic Fibrosis Community Has Navigated COVID-19
September 18, 2020 - As COVID-19 has spread across the world, there has been concern that people with cystic fibrosis may have more severe infections due to the novel virus, similar to 2009 with the H1N1 influenza pandemic.
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