Dr. Poonam Desai: ER Physician in NYC (Raise the Line)
Hello, I'm Doctor Sai. I'm the Chief medical at osmosis and today I'm here with Pun Dasi.
Uh, she's an attending physician in emergency medicine in New York City. Uh Pun is also my cousin.
So thanks for being with us here today. Put, um, I wanted to say that uh, got some bad news from you.
I want to share what that is and understand a little bit more about that. You were working in a busy, er, in New York City up until you found out you tested positive for COVID-19 on the evening of March 24.
So I wanted to discuss that with you and just jump right in. Can you tell me a little bit just, uh, for background, uh, what you do and what it's been like uh, in the past few weeks working in New York City?
Yes. Thank you for having me.
So I'm an emergency medicine physician in New York City. Um, I work between two hospitals, one on the upper East side and one located in Queens, one of the hardest hit boroughs when it comes to, um COVID.
It's been uh pretty busy. We've seen a surge of patients presenting with the typical COVID symptoms ranging from fever, chills, shortness of breath, um, cough.
And we also see many patients who have the mild diversions of the symptoms from sore throat, a minimal cough. And rightfully so both patients are presenting those that are very sick, um, to be taken care of and those who are mildly ill because they're worried and they just want to be reassured that everything's going to be ok.
Awesome. Bounnam.
Have you gotten yourself uh the PP you need to feel safe. Yes.
So I'm very, very fortunate enough to work at um hospitals where I have been given an N95. We have the goggles, we have the surgical masks, the gloves and when needed, we have the gowns to see these patients.
So yes, I've been fortunate enough though. I know that the supply is decreasing.
I know we don't have an unlimited amount of supply. So we will be faced eventually with a time where we may not have the supplies that we need.
So with yourself and your own story. What were your first symptoms?
Any mild symptom? I start thinking, oh, gosh, do I have COVID?
Um did I end up getting COVID? So I've been a lot more cognizant of myself, my body in the last few weeks since I've been um working with a lot of patients with COVID and I started noticing a sore throat which I normally would not have even noticed, but because of my situation, I noticed a sore throat, um, a day before, I think it was maybe Monday the 23rd and the 24th morning I woke up and I started, um, having this headache, which is obviously, um, abnormal for me.
Um, I don't normally get headaches, so that kind of caught me off guard. And when I woke up and walked to the bathroom, I had sputum and phlegm and that's very abnormal for me.
And when I spit it out, I noticed that it was very mild but it was present, um blood tinged sputum. And so at that point, I was like, oh gosh, I have three of these symptoms.
Um Let me call my hospital and talk to my chairman and see, should I get tested or not? Cause I had a surge of shifts that were coming up um in the next week or two.
So he was very kind. He said come right over, let's get you tested because you are 26 weeks pregnant and he was rightfully worried.
And how are you feeling right now? How has it been since then?
When I got the positive? I kind of felt um two things.
Number one, I was scared, um frightened and my next um feeling was, oh gosh, how's it gonna impact me and the baby? And also my husband who lives with me, like, did I possibly give it to him?
And the second feeling, you know, um ironically was that. Oh, gosh.
Now that I have, it doesn't mean if I can get through it, I'm immune and I don't have to worry about this for all the shifts.
I'm gonna be working in the near future. What are your, what are your thoughts?
Now, now that you've had some time to reflect on, about, about the pregnancy, being sick before pregnancy was like, ok, I can get through this.
I can fight through it but being pregnant and sick is much different. Um medically, I know that um being pregnant puts me in the immunocompromised category and my body may not be able to fight infections as well if I was not pregnant.
So with that, I was very, very scared. Um and something that I think I have to mention is that prior to getting the COVID diagnosis, um the weeks prior, I'm part of many, many chat groups with other physicians, healthcare workers where we talk about COVID, where we share our experiences and huge topic.
Recently, Betw amongst my colleagues and in these groups has been how do we not get COVID and how do we not take it home to our family?
So decontaminating ourselves was a huge topic amongst all of us. And you know, when we get to work, we put on our scrubs and when we get to work, um we are given the N 90 fives, we have our own goggles in our bag that we disinfect and put on and at the end of the shift, we have this long process of how we're gonna decontaminate myself.
I normally used to just walk out of work and not think about, you know, even probably washing my hands. I would just put a hand sanitizer on and walk out.
And now what we end up doing is I literally take everything off, put it in a corner that I've wiped down clean with any kind of disinfectant wipe.
And I take the wipes it from top to bottom. I wipe my entire scrub, my entire outfit with whatever disinfectant wipe that I got a hold of including my bag, including every, um, water bottle to lunch box that I had.
We decontaminate the entire thing. Um, I carefully place it in a bag that I've also decontaminated.
And the reason for this is because my husband will get back into that car and I wanna make sure that he doesn't get COVID or, you know, in New York City, we're limited with space.
So we park our car in the garage and the worker who works in our valet, he's gonna get in my car and I wanna make sure that he's also protected and safe.
So it's a long process and the minute we enter our or I enter my apartment and this, this is probably across the board amongst all healthcare workers who are currently working at the hospital.
Is that the minute I walk in, I just strip down my entire outfit, put it in a bag that I know I'm gonna wash that night or in the next day or two and go straight to shower and wash everything top to bottom again.
And this is because I don't wanna get it and this is because I don't wanna give it to my loved ones. It's been a huge concern where we all talk about our entire process and we all discuss how this, you know, how to do this being pregnant and getting, this was almost like it's gonna be my fault if I get it.
Did I not do this entire decontamination properly? Was there something I could have done differently?
Wow, that's a pretty extensive process. Do you?
I mean, given that you've been thinking so hard about this whole thing, I'm sure, you know, you've wondered, was there a specific moment that you recall where you had an exposure that, that you can point to or does it feel like there wasn't any one moment like that?
There's not a particular exposure that I, you know, vividly recall. However, I do remember thinking on almost every single shift that, you know, when I looked around and I saw my coworkers and my colleagues so worried about taking this home or getting it.
And so that thought was always in the back of my head. And in regards to any particular incident, I think the patients that have really lasted um with me a lot longer than I normally would have or many other patients are the young patients.
The ones that, you know, remind me of my friends that remind me of my brother or my loved ones or it could have easily been my husband.
I think when I see a younger patient who is severely affected by COVID from a, you know, a lung disease to needing to be intubated, I think those patients stick with me longer cause it makes me think that could be me, that could be somebody I know and somebody I love, I wonder for yourself again.
But are you taking anything, you know, medication wise or are you on any treatment, uh, as you go through your own process, I definitely did everything I could to research all the treatments that are out there, um, and try to find strong, um, evidence-based research or any kind of direction or whether I should take medicine or not.
And no, at this time, because my symptoms are mild. Um, I'm not in severe respiratory distress requiring an admission or ICU or to be on a ventilator.
Um, I'm not taking any other medications. I do, uh, frequently monitor my temperature and if I do have a fever, then I plan on taking Tylenol.
Got it. Do you plan if you, you know, once you recover from all this, if you feel, well, do you plan to go back to work?
Absolutely. That wasn't even, um, a thought that crossed my mind of not going to work.
Actually, this is what I signed up to do and this is when I probably needed the most in my entire career and maybe, maybe, and hopefully, this is the time where I'll be needed the most and this will never happen again.
Do you have any advice, put them for other healthcare workers that, that may be watching. My advice to everybody is to make sure that you wear your PPE and practice safe sting on and off of the PPE.
And I think that's where we all are not that educated on. You know, how do we properly put on our protective gear and then how do we take off all that protective gear?
So we don't contaminate ourselves. And I think there were many studies that were done where they showed the infection wasn't really contact with the patient.
It showed that a lot of healthcare workers got infected when they were trying to take off all their equipment. Um And I think that's number one that if you're going to be working in that environment, then please, you know, do everything you can to make sure that you do practice all the proper ways and manners to keep yourself safe.
Uh Another, another audience of course, is pregnant women out there. What advice do you have for pregnant women?
Specifically? I think the most, most important advice that I would give a pregnant woman and probably anybody else is to practice um physical distancing.
I think we used to say social distancing, but you should continue to be social through facetime, through phone calls. You need that emotional and mental support, but definitely practice physical distancing.
Um try to stay 6 ft away from everyone and anyone and try to stay home as often as you can, it's the time we're very, very vulnerable to getting an infection.
And more importantly, there's such little known about pregnancy and COVID and COVID and infants that I think it's better to be safe than to spend the rest of your pregnancy worrying or stressed or anxious about what this could mean for the future and put and what can the general public do to keep our healthcare workers on the front lines as safe as possible, physical distancing, frequent hand washing.
So pra practicing good hygiene and seeking out the right resources when you are sick. If you have mild symptoms, that don't require an er visit, it's best not to be flooding the ers right now.
But reaching out to the tele doctors or your primary care doctor with a phone call and seeing whether you do need to come to the er or not.
And I think those are ways that the general public can really, really help flatten the curve and raise the line. Listen, thank you so much.
I think it's safe to say that II speak for everyone when we want to wish you a really speedy recovery, make sure that your baby is safe, your husband's safe.
You know, everyone uh out there that maybe like you in that same situation is safe as well. Uh I want everyone to join osmosis and pledge to raise the line and flatten the curve.
Please go to osmosis.org/covid-19. Take the pledge get three free weeks of complementary access to osmosis prime.
Uh be. Well.
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