Post call

3/28/2020–Today I just finished a week of night call. I’ve been on nights for the past two weeks and my experience this week could not be more different than what I saw last week. I had my interns with me last week, we were relaxed, doing a few admissions here or there and not many were very sick. This week has been a rapid fire of new COVID admissions who are unstable and need more medical attention.

Our hospital has a “Code Team”. It is staffed by doctors who are supposed to drop whatever they are doing to run to the patient when they are unstable. A rapid response is called when a patient is acutely unstable (trouble breathing, low blood pressure, traumatic fall). A CAC is called when there is no pulse. The number of these codes have risen from 0-2 a night to 10+ this week.

One of the hardest parts has been to decide whether or not I will interact with my family and significant other. My parents and my partners parents are not young and they fit the demographics of some patients that I have ran codes on. I even worry about my partner with his childhood history of asthma and what that might mean for how severe his infection will get. After a hard weeks of work, theres nothing more I want than to be with my family and partner. But instead I chose to stay home by myself for their safety. I miss them all so much. Video chatting is great but it’s not that same as seeing them in person.

On the brighter side, I am so grateful to all of my friends and family who are reached out to me and expressed their appreciation. This would be so much harder if I didn’t feel supported. I also could not do this without my colleagues. I am so impressed with their sacrifice and dedication to medicine. Thank you guys, I love all of you!

Afsana Rahman, MD

PGY 3 Internal Medicine