Q&A: What It’s Like to Be an ER Doctor in New York City
Katie Couric interviews a physician about the stresses of treating the coronavirus
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Doctors working in emergency rooms around the nation are dealing with the immense pressures of the coronavirus response. Katie Couric interviewed Dr. Calvin Sun, a per diem emergency medicine physician about what it’s like to treat Covid-19 today. Here’s a snippet of the interview:
Couric: So how would you describe the situation at most of the hospitals you’ve been working at?
Sun: In the last three weeks, things have been increasingly more dire. We were already short on personal protective equipment, resources and support staff before the pandemic was even on our radar.
And patients are just coming in sicker and sicker. Some of them are borderline — they’re not sure whether they should go home or sit in the hospital. There are a lot of ethical dilemmas. Which is the safer place? Going into a coronavirus-only floor where they’re exposed to other sick patients, or somewhere cleaner like home — that doesn’t have enough medical support? And now, we’re also getting patients in cardiac arrest, some dead on arrival. But it wasn’t a sudden jump overnight.
