Yesterday, an easy day.

Yesterday I was off for several hours. I had a different shift. Several of my partners from Reno had arrived, and I was so glad to see them. For me I have never appreciated my partners in the way I do currently. It was so nice to see faces that I recognize. There are seven of my partners that are now in New Jersey helping out. Some are helping with intubation teams, some are helping cover the operating rooms for emergency cases, some are covering obstetric cases, and several working in the ICU as I am. Thankfully, yesterday was status quo.

But, I do have one interesting story. As I was sitting in the ICU, looking over labs, the unit clerk (generally a secretary who answers phones, is made aware of new admissions, etc) alerted me we were getting a new admission to the ICU. I few minutes later, a nurse arrived with the new patient, an elderly woman, in a hospital bed, not on a ventilator, but on oxygen, delivered by a facemask. As I approached the patient I heard the patient's nurse telling the nurse on our unit that this patient was COVID negative. I stepped up and said, "hold on, WHAT, she's COVID negative? This is a COVID, unit, everyone here has the virus. She can't be in here." The nurse seemed unaffected by what I was saying, and he continued to try to give me a transfer report. I said, "No, I'm not taking report on this patient because she is not going to be in this unit. We don't want her to get this virus if she is COVID negative, I'm not taking report, you would not want your mother, wife, sister, or daughter in this COVID unit if she was negative". I turned away to find the unit coordinator, hoping she could get me some phone numbers of who to call, to get the patient out of my unit and into a room on a floor that was not filled with COVID patients. As I was dialing a number for bed control, I turned back around and the nurse and patient were gone. I don't know where they went, no-one ever called me, I put down the phone and thought, Huh, ok thats how you do that! That's all for now. I'll post again tonight, since today I'm off.