Two Nurses Who Traveled to New York City to Care for COVID-19 Patients

“I’d been watching social media and seeing former colleagues and classmates who were working in New York City. [They were] very, very, burnt out and tired. I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to go and help them.” – Caitlin Doane

In the spring, when New York City was the U.S. epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, we watched with increasing concern as hospitals became overwhelmed, nurses and doctors worked long shifts for days on end, and PPE was rationed.

Reports from nurses working under these conditions were often horrifying. (Read one nurse’s story from those early weeks here: https://ajnoffthecharts.com/deserted-note-from-a-young-icu-nurse-as-covid-19-pandemic-intensifies-in-u-s/)

Nurses understood.

Nurses from around the country understood far better than the general public just how dire the situation was in New York City hospitals. Some of them traveled here to help. AJN had the opportunity to sit down (virtually) with two of these nurses after their return home, and their stories are featured in the August Profiles column.

Caitlin Doane, an ED nurse from Ithaca, New York, who comes from a family of first responders, joined a medical mission organized by her hospital to travel downstate to hospitals in the city. […]

2020-09-03T08:32:20-04:00September 3rd, 2020|Nursing|0 Comments
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Worked at Home During the Blizzard? Not Nurses

Photo: MTA New York City Transit / Marc A. Hermann/via Wikimedia Commons

We’ve come through another blizzard here in New York. Many people worked from home that day (we did, at AJN, since the office was closed), or enjoyed the luxury of spending the day safe at home with family. But most nurses had to find a way to get to work.

Long Slog to the Bronx

Many years ago, I worked the evening shift at a hospital for the terminally ill. I was assigned to work on the day of a blizzard. I love my work and had no one to worry about at home, so I was determined to get to the hospital. I usually took a bus across the Bronx to work, but the buses weren’t running. My only option was to take the subway […]

2017-03-20T09:40:52-04:00March 17th, 2017|Nursing, nursing stories|3 Comments
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Legionnaires’ Outbreak in New York City: Some Basics for Nurses

By Betsy Todd, MPH, RN, CIC, AJN clinical editor

11148_loresIn the largest U.S. outbreak of Legionella infection since 1976, when there were 221 cases and 34 related deaths in an outbreak at a Philadelphia American Legion convention, more than 113 cases of the disease have been diagnosed in New York City since mid-July. Twelve people have died.

Legionnaires’ disease is neither rare nor exotic; it is a type of community-acquired pneumonia (it can also be hospital acquired). Symptoms include fever, cough, and progressive respiratory distress. Legionella can also cause a milder, flulike illness known as Pontiac fever that generally resolves without treatment. Because many cases of Legionnaires’ disease are never actually diagnosed, mortality rates are difficult to determine, but the rate currently is estimated at 5% to 30%.

The CDC estimates that 8,000 to 18,000 people are hospitalized with Legionnaires’ disease each year in the U.S., yet only about 3,000 cases are diagnosed and reported. Most cases of Legionnaires’ disease are sporadic, unlinked to any outbreak. The infections often are not recognized as Legionnaires’ disease, for several reasons.

2016-11-21T13:02:09-05:00August 12th, 2015|infectious diseases, Nursing|1 Comment
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A Hurricane Sandy Bed Bath

Amanda Anderson, BSN, RN, CCRN, works as an intensive care nurse in New York City and is pursuing a master’s in administration from Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing at Hunter College.

Hurricane Sandy/NASA Goddard photo Hurricane Sandy/NASA Goddard photo

When Hurricane Sandy hit, the bloated feeling from snack and rom-com binging proved my deepest suffering. Safe, dry, and bored on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, I was little harmed by the storm. My commute across the park proved adventuresome, but I slept in my own bed; I had a bed.

As the city calmed in the weeks following, I watched my fellow New Yorkers erupt in volunteer revolutions. Feeling guilty about my idle skills, I signed up with New York City Department of Health’s Medical Reserve Corps, the organization staffing emergency shelters.

On my scheduled morning, I arrived to find the clinic behind an old door marked with a handwritten sign that said “Medical.” Inside, a crowded group of older professionals—MDs, NPs, social workers—listened as a frazzled and tired pediatrician gave shift report.

Few medical needs plagued the shelter, but one reported client stuck out—a feisty octogenarian evacuee, Ms. E. Her lengthy medication list suggested cardiac problems, and her arthritic frame limited her mobility. Stairs were out of the question.

Report dragged on. I left to find some work to […]

2016-11-21T13:06:56-05:00July 24th, 2013|Nursing|3 Comments
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In Sandy’s Wake, Emerging Nurse Stories and Some Resources for Now and Next Time

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

Whether the National Weather Service officially categorized Sandy as a tropical cyclone or a hurricane, the damage it caused was unprecedented as it made its way through the mid-Atlantic area and up through the Hudson Valley and New England.

I’m one of millions without power, but consider myself lucky, given the horrific damage sustained by many in neighboring areas. The severity of the storm really hit home as I learned about hospital closings—as any nurse or physician will tell you, it’s not something done without a great deal of deliberation, as moving severely ill patients carries its own significant risks.

In Brooklyn, Coney Island Hospital, a city-owned facility, was closed. In Manhattan, New York Downtown Hospital and the Manhattan VA Medical Center moved or discharged patients before the storm hit. And because of storm damage, New York University Langone Medical Center and more recently, Bellevue Hospital Center, the 275-year-old flagship hospital of New York’s municipal hospital system, were evacuated.

Stories are emerging about the heroic efforts of hospital staff who worked through the storm, evacuating patients down many flights of stairs, using plastic sleds as they slid patients down as many as 17 flights in some instances. The stories reminded me of those I heard from nurses at Charity Hospital in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and from nurses from St John’s Medical Center in Joplin, Missouri, which was hit by a tornado, or […]

2016-11-21T13:09:01-05:00November 2nd, 2012|Nursing|1 Comment
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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