Page 12 - Delaware Medical Journal - May/June 2020

COVID-19
‘A New Emotional
and Mental Toll’:
A Physician’s Observations on COVID-19
Angela D. Brown, MD
Sunday nights are always the worst for me. The angst and anxiety about the upcoming week always
interfere with my sleep. A week of patients, results, and families to take care of, and that’s at work. Not to mention my own immediate family and their lives, needs, schedules, and issues.
But it’s a different kind of stress now, with COVID-19. I am not in the ER, or ICU. I am many of my patients have COVID-19, or they have family members who do, or they have
a fear of COVID. The anxiety that we see so often in primary care is now heightened. Social distancing and isolation are taking a toll on people who were already struggling with depression, anxiety, poorly controlled diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and the list goes on and on.
And they call us. We are doing video and telephone visits, learning the technology as we go. Just like we are learning about COVID-19 as we go. We reassure, triage, counsel, and care for them all.

died from COVID-19. She and her three sisters all had it, she being the youngest at 69 years of age. Three weeks prior to her death, I saw her for a diabetic check. Her AIC was 6.2 and her hypertension was excellently controlled. She was vibrant and full of life. She fell ill two weeks later and called with cough, shortness of breath, and fever. I sent her for COVID-19 testing. She progressively worsened over the next two days and presented to the ER with a pulse oximetry of 76%. After failing biPAP, she was ventilated, went into multisystem organ failure, and
died within eight days. She tested positive for COVID-19 while there. It was devastating to me, and especially her family, one of whom is still critically ill.
This pandemic brings with it a new emotional and mental toll. It also brings fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the potential harm, fear of missing something. It's not like almost every other disease we've learned about. There are not guidelines that have been tried and true for decades. It is unprecedented, uncharted territory.
I like control and predictability. This crisis offers neither, although there are some silver linings. I am suddenly less rushed. There is more time to take care of myself. I see my kids and husband more. I cook more, which is both a blessing and a curse. There is a stronger sense of unity with our staff and coworkers. And there is more time to grieve.
Most importantly, there is the knowledge that this will end one day. I know that when it does, I will come into our new normal with a new level of knowledge, compassion, and understanding of people in all walks of life. And coronavirus will not destroy us or our world. We just have to push through this. The other side will be unfamiliar in many ways, and in a lot of ways it will be better and safer than before.

rest, recharge, and get up and do it again tomorrow.
CONTRIBUTOR
Angela D. Brown, MD is a 1997 graduate of Temple University School of Medicine and a practicing family physician with Total Care Physicians in Newark.
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Del Med J | May/June 2020 | Vol. 92 | No. 3