Op-Ed: The pandemic, Hurricane Ian and me — a doctor whose friends say I have PTSD
I know this may be a hard thing to believe. In the last month, my life has completely changed in front of your eyes. I’m not going to tell you it has been an easy journey.
Here in Washington, I’m a physician and I go home every weekend to help run the hospital and run the ED at my clinic. I have to be at the hospital all day, every day, working with all kinds of sick and injured people with no time to see them.
My life has been turned upside down, and the thought of trying to describe it fully would be an impossible task for any human being to do.
I’m a physician and I have no power because I have no license to practice in Washington. I have to work in the ED because I can’t go home without seeing patients.
The hospital I work for takes care of all the ED patients, and I don’t have a choice but to go in there and make sure they get well.
This is a hospital whose patients have a 90 percent chance of dying if they don’t get treated. As a doctor, I’m telling that to myself and I’m telling it to all the other doctors. I also ask them.
They need to take care of the problem. That’s what the job is. We can’t come in and be like, “If you don’t go on a trip, we’re going to miss you.”
I have a sick patient who’s coughing all over the hospital and he needs to go to the ER immediately. I get there a little after 8 p.m. so I grab my bag, grab a taxi and get on the freeway, heading to Seattle to pick up this patient, who
