{"id":13619,"date":"2020-06-10T13:49:47","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T19:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=13619"},"modified":"2020-06-10T13:49:47","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T19:49:47","slug":"inside-the-other-front-lines-of-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/06\/10\/inside-the-other-front-lines-of-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside The Other Front Lines Of COVID"},"content":{"rendered":"

While ICUs battled the most severe cases, other COVID-19 healthcare providers dug in too<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Eric Valentine<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Karen P. Stevens, Ph.D., R.N., the assistant nurse manager for St. Luke\u2019s Health System, began her career in the midst of the HIV-AIDS pandemic and is managing the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic now.
Photo credit: Karen Stevens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

President Donald Trump has called it \u201cthe invisible enemy,\u201d among other things. And while charts of case numbers and death tolls as well as images of mask-wearing healthcare workers and grocery shoppers flow freely, something we don\u2019t always see is what goes on behind the COVID battles along the periphery\u2014the healthcare providers not inside the Intensive Care Units.<\/p>\n

We spoke with two people about their firsthand experience with the novel coronavirus: a nurse at St. Luke\u2019s and a private-practice physician\u2019s assistant.<\/p>\n

The Nurse<\/b><\/p>\n

For Karen Stevens, the assistant nurse manager for St. Luke\u2019s Health System, a pandemic is nothing new. She began her healthcare career in the 1980s, when the HIV-AIDS epidemic was surging. And while the viruses have their distinct differences, Stevens acknowledges how similar the circumstances are when it comes to providing care.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the not-knowing that was so hard. That\u2019s the challenge with novel viruses. We had a demographic of affected people but we didn\u2019t have all the information (such as how the virus was transmitted and how contagious it may or may not be),\u201d Stevens observed. \u201cIt took years to get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The getting it right part isn\u2019t about the diagnosis and the treatment; for a nurse like Stevens, it has to do with how to triage patients and how to provide care in the best possible way without spreading the disease. With the recent COVID-19 crisis, St. Luke\u2019s was more of a testing and ER than it was an Intensive Care Unit. Patients that needed ICU were transferred to Twin Falls and Boise. But before someone would get transported, they\u2019d be under the care of multiple doctors and nurses, all of whom needed to wear far more PPE (personal protective equipment) than in normal circumstances. And with every new patient, there needed to be new PPE put on, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re used to providing care,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cIt\u2019s the \u2018change fatigue\u2019 that can set in, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Change fatigue refers to the procedural changes (not just the changing out of PPE) that can happen weekly and even daily in healthcare when new guidelines come down from the CDC on how best to protect the spread of a disease.<\/p>\n

There is some positive impact in all of this. Stevens noted that normally nurses specialize in a particular department and type of care. But given the reconfiguration St. Luke\u2019s had to go through to handle the pandemic, nurses had to work across departments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it made us better healthcare providers,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cIndividually, we have always had a great team of doctors and nurses. But the reconfiguring made us a better team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Private Practitioner<\/b><\/p>\n

For Nanette Ford, a physician assistant who has been practicing in the Valley for 24 years, there has been a combination of frustration and elation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can barely get masks and gloves. I was able to order four boxes of gloves last week. I couldn\u2019t get masks,\u201d Ford said as she explained one of the reasons she can\u2019t provide COVID-19 testing and treatment in her office. \u201cI have to turn away patients with acute symptoms, and to a healthcare provider, that feels like a mortal sin.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Ford can\u2014and does\u2014provide antibody testing. The particular test she performs is a blood draw and has the highest possible accuracy rating.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat has been a godsend,\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n

The antibody test can be performed on an unlimited basis, unlike the COVID-19 diagnostic test, and it tells a patient if they have built up antibodies known to fight the virus. It\u2019s the test most people hope to be positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of them (patients with antibodies) start doing the happy dance,\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n

Like Stevens, Ford noted that so much is still unknown about the virus. That means we\u2019re optimistically assuming that the antibodies will do two things: 1) Protect us from the virus, and 2) Stick around long enough to protect us from the virus down the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cTesting again in the fall or winter would help us see if the antibodies are still holding,\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n

Also like Stevens, Ford said the pandemic has led to positives (other than test results). She noted how private practitioners are all coordinating and sharing information with one another regularly. In fact, one person providing the medical community with the latest data is a retired doctor, Scott McLean.<\/p>\n

We Haven\u2019t Won Yet<\/b><\/p>\n

Although caseloads have gone down in the Valley and as businesses slowly reopen, both Stevens and Ford said if there was one thing they could let the community know, it is that we\u2019re not out of the woods yet.<\/p>\n

Regarding the recent protests, Ford said, \u201cPeople are risking their lives to be heard right now, and I don\u2019t have any judgment on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding a recent trip to the grocery store, Stevens said, \u201cI noticed fewer masks, less distancing. I worry that we\u2019re letting our guard down a little and it\u2019s not yet time to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While ICUs battled the most severe cases, other COVID-19 healthcare providers dug in too By Eric Valentine President Donald Trump has called it \u201cthe invisible enemy,\u201d among other things. And while charts of case numbers and death tolls as well as images of mask-wearing healthcare workers and grocery shoppers flow freely, something we don\u2019t always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,3,18,36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-community","8":"category-covid-19","9":"category-news","10":"category-slider"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}