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Joseph Marine
Joseph Marine@DrJMarine·
The myth of "overwhelmed hospitals" throughout the USA during the pandemic is a lie that refuses to die. It was perpetuated as the most effective way to keep the public cowed and compliant with the covid authoritarianism and to silence critics. It also had enormous collateral damage.
Joseph Marine@DrJMarine

Not so. When the pandemic started, I was president of my state ACC chapter and was chair-elect of the BOG. I went to my hospital almost every day. My office was 50 feet from our main covid ICU and was across the hall from where the doctors would hang out. As others did, I volunteered for every crisis staffing pool and worked as a hospitalist and for over a week as an ICU intern. I had a front-row seat to the pandemic in my hospital and was in touch with cardiologists throughout the state and the country. My 900-bed hospital was as empty as it has ever been in the spring of 2020. The peak census of covid patients was 150. Everyone noticed the dearth of patients presenting with CV symptoms. I had one patient present very late with AV block who developed renal failure. I asked him why he waited and he admitted he was terrified to come to the ER because of all the images on TV. Many colleagues have related similar stories of patients who were injured or died from delayed care. My health system had to lay off many HCW because they had nothing to do. The experience of CV leaders in my state and around the country was similar. I created an ACC campaign called #HeartCareCantWait to try to overcome public fear of going to ERs. I encouraged my hospital to communicate to the public that we were not overwhelmed, had plenty of beds, and was a safe place to receive care. In late April, I wrote to the governor of the state asking him to end the insanity and restore normal health care operations. I did not hear any colleagues complain about losing money. There was concern about practice viability and how they were going to pay staff without having to lay them off. I did hear a lot of frustration at being sidelined, having nothing to do, and not being able to take care of their patients. The medical shutdown of spring 2020 was a disastrous mistake and overreaction. Those who made these bad decisions will never acknowledge it.

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Brad Spellberg
Brad Spellberg@BradSpellberg·
@DrJMarine I’m sorry. But everyone i work with lived through hell. You are the outlier here. I’m glad your experience was different. But your experience does not reflect most. And it is incredibly insulting for you to deny what the rest of us lived through.
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Joseph Marine
Joseph Marine@DrJMarine·
Sorry to hear. The critical care doctors I interacted with seemed to relish the work and the sense of purpose. Morale was quite high. Housestaff as well. I did know doctors who were frustrated at being sidelined and having their clinics closed and not being able to take care of their patients. Knew some HCWs who did not like being laid off. There was of course lots of generalized anxiety in the environment that made things worse. Too much panic and fear. That was the real hell.
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Brad Spellberg
Brad Spellberg@BradSpellberg·
@DrJMarine No. It was the inundation of patient death and suffering day after day, week after week. It was the worst 3 months of the professional lives of everyone i work with. The nurses showed battlefield level courage. We all have PTSD to this day. I ask you again not to minimize it.
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Brad Spellberg
Brad Spellberg@BradSpellberg·
@DrJMarine At the peak in winter of 2020, more than half our ward beds were COVID. >90% of our ICU was COVID. We literally ran out of sterile water due to the catastrophic volume of HFNC used. The mortality data speak for itself. You are wrong. Sorry.
Brad Spellberg tweet media
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Joseph Marine
Joseph Marine@DrJMarine·
HFNC = high flow nasal cannulae? I suggest you try looking at this from how an objective person outside health care would. Total volume of patients was actually below normal, but a higher proportion had a new disease called covid. Even with a higher than normal mortality rates, some people would find it difficult to understand why doctors and nurses who signed up to be critical care health care professionals would be traumatized taking care of sick patients. Would you find it strange if professional firefighters publicly complained about having to fight fires? Even after the challenging wildfires you have had in CA, I do not think I have ever seen that.
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Austin Meyer
Austin Meyer@austingmeyer·
You realize this same nonsensical argument could be deployed for soldiers who experience PTSD despite signing up to be soldiers? "Would you find it strange if professional soldiers experienced PTSD after being asked to fight in a battle?" No, I would not find it strange, actually. I was housestaff during the pandemic and it was terrible. Lots of months-long ventilator patients, lots of goals of care, lots of death. Lots of attending subspecialists who more or less refused to see patients in the hospital.
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