46 Time November 30/December 7, 2020
The weighT of The pandemic firsT caughT up wiTh new
York City ER physician Jane Kim in April. After spending weeks
caring for seriously ill patients, she learned of four deaths among
her “work family.” Three died of the virus, another from sui-
cide. Her grief “halted” her, she
says: “You can’t think. You can’t
move. You can’t breathe.”
Since then, Kim, 39, hasleaned on friends, family and
therapy to cope. She’s also heart-
ened that doctors now better un-
derstand how to treat COVID-19
compared with those early, uncertain days. But as cases rise na-
tionwide, she worries that doctors are about to face a “tsunami”
of patients. “I fear that we’re not ready— emotionally, physi-
cally, mentally—to go through that again,” Kim says. “I’m not.”
As the COVID-19 pandemic has surged, receded and surgedagain, it has taken a tremendous toll on people like Kim. In the
U.S. alone, more than 218,400 health care workers have con-
tracted the virus and at least 800 have died, according to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; an estimated
12% of U.S. health care workers have been infected compared
with approximately 3.4% of the general population. And many
more are suffering in other ways—more than 40% of doctors in
the U.K. are reporting worsening mental-health issues, accord-
ing to an October survey from the British Medical Association.
As another wave builds, it’s safe to say that many health care
workers are very far from O.K.
The problem of doctor burnout stretches far beyond U.S.
shores. Silvia Giorgis, a 49-year-old anesthesiologist at the
Maria Vittoria hospital in Turin, Italy, says doctors there rode
the “adrenaline of a new challenge” during the first wave, but
are now frustrated that too little was done to prevent a rebound.
She’s especially disheartened by the spread of false claims that
doctors are exaggerating the danger to justify unpopular and
economically damaging lockdowns. “We used to receive tons of
food, enough pizza to feed entire neighborhoods and all kinds of
encouragement every day,” says Giorgis. “We went from being
heroes... to being killers.”ThaT so many docTors are exhausted could result in patients
receiving inadequate care, potentially negating the benefits of
our newfound treatment knowledge. Dr. Patrick Pavwoski, a
37-year-old neurologist at Mercy Health hospital in Muskegon,
Mich., knows he needs a break, but several of his colleagues have
tested positive or have suspected COVID-19. “If I get sick, I don’t
know what they’re going to do,” Pavwoski says. He recently had
to walk away from a patient to take a moment to collect himself.
“I was so exhausted, I was literally falling asleep in the room
and wasn’t listening to anything the patient was saying,” he says.
Like other health care workers, Pavwoski is frustrated that
more people aren’t making sacrifices to help contain the virus.
He’s upset by photos of friends gathering without masks and
when he hears that people are planning their usual Thanksgiv-
ing dinners, all while some of his neighbors are being admit-
ted with COVID-19. “You see these people in the hospital you
know weren’t wearing masks,” he says.
For Kim, the New York City
doctor, it’s been especially
hard to deal with people who
doubt the pandemic’s sever-
ity despite all evidence, from
the skyrocketing caseloads
in state after state to the up-
ticks in hospitalizations that
betray a calamity unfolding before our eyes. After some-
one sent her an article questioning whether her city’s surge
was real, she almost threw her phone against the wall. “How
could these people?” she says. “How could you dare say that?”
—With reporting by francesca Berardi/Turin •Health
‘Had this been handleddifferently, doctors wouldn’tbe getting burned out.’
—PATRICK PAVWOSKI, Michigan neurologistTHE TOLL
ON DOCTORS
CAN THE WORLD’S PHYSICIANS
SURVIVE ANOTHER WAVE? BY TARA LAW
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Emergency-room physician
Jane Kim, in Brooklyn on Nov. 18