I wrote the following short piece for the Minnesota Chapter of the American College of Physicians of which I am privileged to serve as Governor. I edited it a bit for my colleagues – physicians and all others – at Hennepin Healthcare. I offer it to you here.
We will remember these days.
Some day we will remember standing outside a patient room covered head to toe in hair net, mask, plastic face shield, gown, and gloves. We will remember looking at our nurse colleague similarly covered, look into each other’s eyes, take a deep breath, and walk into that room and once again, for the umpteenth time, be face-to-face with a patient. A patient with COVID-19.
Some day we will remember canceling every CME conference, business meeting, family vacation, wedding, funeral, and family gathering for a whole year and wondered how we will ever re-connect.
Some day we will remember how we learned how to care for our patients over a video connection.
Some day we will remember that crazy time when we put our masks in paper bags so that there would be enough for later.
Some day we will remember taking pay cuts and furloughs so that our hospital and clinics could survive.
Some day we will remember the time when our fellow human beings died without their family by their side.
We will remember these days.
But some day, we will also remember feeling closer to our colleagues than we ever have been and realize that these are our lifelong brothers and sisters.
Some day we will remember that people stood on their balconies to applaud what we do every day.
Some day we will remember that during a pandemic there was still kindness and compassion.
Some day we will remember that we were smart and we were brave.
Some day we will remember that what we do still matters.
We will remember these days. And we will remember what a privilege it is to be a caregiver at Hennepin.
Thanks for reading.
Twitter: @DrDavidHilden
Healthy Matters airs on News Talk 830 WCCO at 7:00 am Sunday morning Central time and streams live at wccoradio.com.
