Inside the ICU: Frontline workers describe devastating toll COVID-19 takes
One physician said they have lost many patients to coronavirus and called it a demoralizing, petrifying experience
One physician said they have lost many patients to coronavirus and called it a demoralizing, petrifying experience
One physician said they have lost many patients to coronavirus and called it a demoralizing, petrifying experience
Inside the intensive care unit at Froedtert Hospital, one doctor and nurse said they are seeing the same terrifying scene on a daily basis: Patients dying of coronavirus.
"There's nothing I can do to even help (when they're critically ill.) All I'm doing is supportive because even the patients that have gotten all the treatments we know have still died," said Dr. Carolyn Pinkerton, an ICU physician and anesthesiologist.
"When you die of this, it's because your lungs are failing and it's like drowning in blood and secretions," Pinkerton said. "There's nothing we can do to help you and that I think is what's most demoralizing to us because we're used to fixing people. We're good at it."
Pinkerton said they allow one loved one inside the ICU at the end of life for their patients, but those patients are in isolation during the bulk of their treatment.
"Unfortunately, when you are this sick, the speed at which you die is pretty precipitous. I have had families not make it," Pinkerton said.
Pinkerton said it doesn't end for patients who survive the illness either.
"Even if they survive getting out of the ICU, COVID-19 isn't over for them. The majority of them still are not back to normal. Most of them still can't breathe normally. They're still afraid that they're going to get COVID-19 again because I can't tell them that they're not," Pinkerton said.
One viral photo of a Texas doctor hugging a patient with coronavirus over the Thanksgiving holiday resonated with Pinkerton and Stephanie Kramer, an ICU nurse at Froedtert.
"I do feel stressed when I come to work. There is a lot of nursing burnout that is happening and physician burnout. Everyone is burned out. Everyone is going into overdrive, but we come here to do the job we signed up to do and that's what keeps us going," Kramer said.
"Seeing people when we go out to grab our groceries for the one time we can go out during our week, when we're working six 12-hour shifts a week, and (they're) not wearing a mask. Or seeing people going to bars and seeing people partying," Kramer said. "It's very discouraging to see all of those things while we're sitting here with patients who are extremely sick."
Pinkerton said they treat a large range of coronavirus patients, many of whom do not recover, and warns people who think this is only an illness that impacts the sick or elderly.
"I think people like to make themselves feel safer by trying to find patterns that don't include them as a population, but it doesn't matter," Pinkerton said. "If you're going to die from COVID-19, it doesn't matter how old you are, what color you are, if you have diabetes, if you're fat, if you're skinny, if you're born in South Milwaukee, if you're from up north. It doesn't matter. That's what's petrifying for us, because I can't anticipate, when a patient comes into the ICU, if that's going to be it for them."