The Science History Institute’s Distillation’s podcast has come out with a new episode, an interview with Linda, one of the COVID nurses I photographed.
it’s hard on a lot of levels. It’s just heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking to be like the patient’s only, you’re only the only person they see, ever. And you’re covered from head to toe. So they don’t even know what your face looks like. And it’s hard to give good patient care and also emotional support. Like, you just don’t really have the time. And then to, you know, come out of the room and then call the family and give them updates. It’s hard to do all of that, without like, you know, cutting the family members off, and sometimes you have a patient with five different family members call. And it, sometimes you can’t even get to all the calls and that’s what’s I think heartbreaking because I just think of family members sitting at home and being worried and not having information because you know, the nurses and the doctors are just too busy to, um, get to them. And if they’re in a patient room, you can’t really pick up the phone and put it on your face because it’s got like coronavirus all over it. But I don’t know if… I’m trying to like, figure out how to deal with it. And I think I’m like brushing the surface of trying to get through it. But I feel like, I just feel broken.
You can listen to the interview here: https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/podcast/covids-hidden-toll-on-nurses
