Chapters Transcript Video A Year That No One Planned for: Residents Discuss Their 2020 Experience Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery residents discuss how the pandemic impacted their academic training and their lives. mm our department has a lot of leaders in the hospital. And so we were hearing about kind of changes that were coming pretty imminently. And so I met with our program director um and we um started to get together make these plans and within two days of us making kind of those backup plans, we were kind of in the midst of deploying them. We went from very quickly from um, kind of regular residency to complete shutdown where almost everyone is at home. It was really just a skeleton team in the hospitals, cases were cancelled. Uh Didactic structure was changed from in person, weekly, multi times weekly events to uh daily, a couple hours of zoom sessions or faculty really kind of work together to put together lectures. It was just a lot of changes very sudden. So when I think of 2020, I think of a lot of different things. Obviously there's the pandemic, but on top of that I ended up buying a house around the same time. I have been planning a wedding, which has been complicated by covid. So I think there are a lot of great experiences during that time, but obviously always overshadowed by the pandemic. I'll tell you when I think about my 2020 resumes to experience, it was my last year training. So it's kind of unique experiences that I was kind of senior enough to, you know, be handling and doing things on my own. And I feel like the pandemic forced me to do that even more so, but also do it more so in the department, like within the other attending when I think of 2020 I really, it just seems like things were changing every day, like as a resident, it's every single day, there seems to be new information, new policies, new ways that we're trying to keep ourselves safe and keep our patients safe. Um, so I saw us come together a lot as a residency class, having weekly, if not more than weekly meetings. Andrew was obviously instrumental and keeping us all informed through her role as administrative chief. But really I think we're all, um, probably all, most of us in medicine are very used to having things planned out and having things in control. And really this is the year that you cannot plan out kind of, plans are just changing on a day to day basis for really the whole year. Mm I probably say my most significant challenges that one. Again, like I said, it was part of the end of my training and there were things that I was, you know, fearful about trying to fine tune and, you know, because of how things were, we were doing a lot less cases. Um, I do feel happy that, like I said, we, you know, as otolaryngologist, we weren't necessarily always on the front line of things that were going on, you know, compared to our Eddie docks or icu dot although a number of people in our department definitely stepped up and helped out in those areas when they could, but whenever I did get the chance to, you know, do a trick or help someone that was going through the sequel of Covid, I felt like I was finally kind of pitching in and doing my part for me. Actually, the hardest thing about it was feeling really useless. You know, I was watching my colleagues. Um, and my, not even, not only in my program, but also my friends and other programs, my attendings, you know, people I'm close with, I'm watching them sort of navigate these new challenges and really kind of be on that front line and meanwhile it was my job to continue doing my research and stay home. And um you know, I was working from home because I was luckily able to do my projects in that way, but I felt really um it felt really strange to be a physician in a pandemic and not using my skills. Yeah, When I think back to my base challenges, I mean, I can definitely echo what Elaine and Andrew said. Um and also it really hit home when I actually contracted Covid. I was the only resident in our department who did, even though I was also in my research time. And I think that took a while for me to get over it from a health perspective, but also from an emotional perspective, because there's so much still unknown about it. Um and even still we're learning about what are the long term effects. I volunteered to work in one of the covid, I see us for a three week period. Um because it was really at the point where we didn't know how bad it was going to be a Baltimore. It was a little bit scary. I remember watching the PPE videos um like a couple of times about how to be safe to protect yourself when you're moving in and out of these units. But then it became very routine. You're watching these uh these amazing like physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, all these people who just kind of figured it out together and learned how to take care of these patients even though um, it was in units that, that was not their usual patient surgical iCU is turning into medical. I see us and pediatric ICUs turning into covid adult ICUs. There was a lot of people being flexible remember. Similar similar to Elena was also in the research tracked and we were prepared to sort of take back up call and I just, I'll never forget like how ready we were. Like in terms of a residency program, we just had everything in place that in case it got really bad case have for residents were going to go get sick or if anything happened in the wards then we'll be able to step in. But fortunately never came to that. I think we had a good enough plan in place in the beginning that really helped prevent it from getting worse. Yeah. Mm. And I think the COVID-19 pandemic and having to see patients in a different way really highlighted all the different tools we can use to accomplish patient care. You know whether that's seeing a patient on telemedicine initially getting labs ordered because especially if it's a family or someone that you know, taking care of someone else that can be hard to get to doctor's appointments for our pediatric patients and families. I think that that can be difficult. And so I think this is a really good avenue, even from some post op checks, initial meetings with patients to get the ball rolling on things, I think we can get things done a lot quicker that way. But I do think that you still have to be a diligent in fact that it is a disparity still for people that don't speak english as their primary language because we don't have the best tools kind of easy set in place to do translation services through it. But I think it will be a great tool that we still need to find two. Yeah, when I when I think of what we hope to take away within otolaryngology practice, I mean, I definitely think telemedicine is huge because a lot of times, you know, as physicians, we don't want to the change, right, we're really reluctant to change and I think being forced to and actually finding the tools to adapt our practices has been a huge step forward. But then again, as venture said, we do have barriers that we still need to overcome. There are people who do, who don't have internet at home and um we have to really consider how we can use telemedicine to our advantage, but also to make sure that we meet those obstacles for our patients. One thing that I really missed over the last year um is seeing my co residents in person frequently, like we're close and it's really, it's interesting the first time I think we've all seen each other as a group in one room was just a few weeks ago because we met for a socially distance uh in service exam. And it just, I was actually kind of floored to realize like how much I really miss seeing all these people in person, like we are just little zoom screens all year. Um so I'm just very hopeful that over the next year um as things return to normal will actually get to see each other, spend time together, continue to take good care of patients but continue to enjoy being friends as well. I really miss having the weekly didactic where we can all just sort of debrief after a day and just hang out. You know, someone who's just finished residency. I do feel like overall, just as a residency program, it prepared me greatly to be an independent thinker and to come out and kind of do my own procedures. You know, it's residency. I feel like anywhere it's tough and I are attending in particular um always want us to be doing our best and make sure we're doing a great job. And that really has translated to me being able to, not easily, nothing's easy and definitely still learning um but kind of go in and have a lot of confidence when I talked to my patients and I talked to them saying things that I learned exactly from my attendings and they're like, no one has ever talked to me like that, no one's ever explained anything to me like that. So you're a great doctor. And so my being a great doctor has a lot to do with my training um at Hopkins and I think it's a great training program and that, you know, any otolaryngologist that once the program and graduated from that would come out being a great otolaryngology, ready to go out and lead and wherever area, um, that they're deployed in. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Created by Related Presenters
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