A first-person narration (drawn from tweets) by an emergency-room physician, attributed to Dr. Craig Spencer, describing a single 9am–shift during the early COVID-19 surge: numerous critically ill patients requiring ventilation, pervasive PPE use, physical and emotional strain, strict decontamination rituals, and family separation. The narrator urges social distancing and better data collection to avoid overwhelming hospitals. The video was uploaded by LARRUZ on March 25, 2020.
Questions this video answers
March 25, 2020.
Dr. Craig Spencer.
6:30am.
Chapters
I think at this point, large scale reliable data is really important. But also important are the human stories. And something that caught my eye was the day in the life of an emergency room Dr. Craig Spencer that he revealed in a series of tweets. Thank you everyone for the incredible messages of support and encouragement. Many of you asked what it was like in the emergency room. Right now I want to share a bit with you. A day in the life of an emergency room Document A brief Dispatch from the COVID 19 front line. Wake up at 6:30am Priority is making a big pot of coffee for the whole day because the place by the hospital is closed. The Starbucks too. It's all closed. On the walk, it feels like Sunday. Nobody's out. Might be the freezing rain or it's early. Regardless, that's good. Walk in for the 9am shift. Immediately struck by how the calm of the early morning city streets is immediately transformed. The bright fluorescent lights of the emergency room reflect off everybody's protective goggles. There's a cacophony of coughing. You stop, mask up, walk in. You take sign out from the previous team. But nearly every patient is the same. Young and old. Cough, shortness of breath, fever. They are really worried about one patient. Very short of breath. On the maximum amount of oxygen we can give, but still breathing fast. You immediately assess this patient. It's clear what this is and what needs to happen. You have a long and honest discussion with the patient and family over the phone. It's best to put her on life support now before things get much worse. You're getting set up for that. But you're notified of another really sick patient coming in. You rush over. They're also extremely sick. Vomiting. They need to be put on life support as well. You bring them back. Two patients in rooms right next to each other, both getting a breathing tube. It's not even 10am yet. For the rest of your shift, nearly every hour you get paged. Stat notification. Very sick patient. Short of breath. Fever, oxygen 88%. Stat notification. Low blood pressure, short of breath, low oxygen. Stat notification. Low oxygen, can't breathe. Fever all day. Sometime in the afternoon, you recognize you haven't drank any water. You're afraid to take off the mask. It's the only thing that protects you. Surely you can last a little longer. In West Africa, during Ebola, you spend hours in a hot suit without water. One more patient. By late afternoon, you need to eat. Restaurant across the street is closed. Right? Everything is closed. But thankfully the hospital cafeteria is open. You grab something when you wash Your hands twice. Cautiously take off your mask and eat as fast as you can. Go back, mask up, walk in. Nearly everyone you see today is the same. We assume everyone is COVID 19. We wear gowns, goggles and masks at every encounter, all day. It's the only way to be safe. Where did all the heart attacks and appendicitis patients go? It's all Covid. When your shift ends, you sign out to the oncoming team. It's all COVID 19. Over the past week, we've all learned the signs. He goes on to list the signs, one of which is low oxygen. You share concerns of friends throughout the city. Without personal protective equipment. Hospitals running out of ventilators. Before you leave, you wipe everything down. Your phone, your badge, your wallet, your coffee mug. All. All of it. Drown it in bleach. Everything in a bag. Take no chances. Sure, you got it all. Wipe it down again. Can't be too careful. You walk out and take off your mask. You feel naked and exposed. It's still raining, but you want to walk home. It feels safer than the subway or bus. Plus you need to decompress. The streets are empty. This feels nothing like what is happening inside. Maybe people don't know. You get home, you strip in the hallway. It's okay. Your neighbors know what you do. Everything in a bag. Your wife tries to keep your toddler away, but she hasn't seen you in days, so it's really hard. Run to the shower, rinse it all away. Never happier time for family. You reflect on the fact that it's really hard to understand how bad this is and how bad it's going to be if all you see are empty streets. Hospitals are nearing capacity. We're running out of ventilators. Ambulance sirens don't stop. Everyone we see today was infected a week ago or more. The numbers will undoubtedly skyrocket overnight, as they have every night the past few days. More will come to the emergency room. More will be stat notifications. More will be put on a ventilator. We were too late to stop the virus. Full stop. But we can slow its spread. The virus can't infect those it never meets. Stay inside. Social distancing is the only thing that will save us now. You might hear people say it isn't real. It is. You might hear people say it isn't bad. It is. You might hear people say it can't take you down. It can. I survived ebola, I fear. COVID 19, do your part. Stay home, stay safe. And every day I'll come to work for you. This is a moving accounting through a series of tweets by an emergency room doctor on the very front lines of fighting COVID 19 without question the best thing we could do now is stay home while people like Craig Spencer doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, service workers support us and treat the people who are sick. And really importantly as we get more and more reliable data this isn't the time to panic. This is a time to take optimal action Given that we're operating under a huge amount of uncertainty the two things we need to do is the most important is to save lives and the second is collect good reliable data before we can reopen the economy we have to get good data to understand the spread of the virus in order to be able to control it and all the while treating people who are sick without overwhelming the resources of our medical system. Stay safe out there, stay informed, stay strong. We'll be at this thing. Love you all.
