Page 31 - RU Robert Wood Johnson Medicine • Summer 2020

The COVID-19 Medical Student
Task Force identified needs within the system and mobilized students to address them. Danika Baskar (left) and other students collected and delivered PPE to health care providers.
About 25 percent of patients arriving daily were treated and discharged from the tent, never needing to enter the hospital.
Anesthesiology Augments Its Practice
For the anesthesiology team, the crisis created an exponentially increased need for intubations.
With elective surgeries canceled by Governor Phil Murphy, anesthesiolo- gists were reassigned in several different capacities, according to Keith Lewis, MD, professor and chair, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine.
Teams of anesthesia clinicians per- formed up to 10 one-hour intubations a day during the height of the crisis. Attending physicians provided 24/7 support to in-house physicians, while other members of Dr. Lewis’s team were assigned to the ICU to oversee residents. Some of the department’s 30 residents and 25 certified regis- tered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) pro- vided consults on sedation, analgesia, endotracheal tubes, and proning care.
“This was an amazing team-build- ing situation among anesthesiology, emergency medicine, and cardiology,” Dr. Lewis says. “We broke down a lot of barriers that had existed before. I’ve never seen the medical school and hospital work so well together.”
Surgery Adapts Its Role
Apart of the overall surge response plan, the bulk of the Department of Surgery’s acute care surgery staff refocused its efforts on providing coverage in ICUs in New Brunswick and RWJUH Somerset. With most surgeons reassigned to different areas, trauma or general surgery call was voluntarily covered by a cadre of
surgery subspecialists. Anil Nanda, MD, MPH, FAANS, professor and chair, Department of Neurosurgery, says the department continued to be involved in emergency stroke and trauma operations.
“Our entire department agreed to help the hospital in any way possible, often functioning in areas that weren’t familiar to us,” says Leonard Y. Lee, MD ’92, professor and chair, Department of Surgery. “It was an unselfish effort across the board.”
Providing Inpatient Care Safely
The Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, which includes the Division of Hospital Medicine, began working with the hospital in February to develop a plan for handling COVID-19 patients. The entire team volunteered to join the COVID-19 response. Sheraz Siddiqui, MD, associate professor of family medicine and community health, chief, Division of Hospital Medicine, helped create processes for admitting patients who tested positive, delivering inpatient care, determining when discharge was appropriate, and providing follow-up care.
“These physicians demonstrated the highest standards of professional excellence in service to patients by knowingly putting themselves in harm’s way,” says Alfred F. Tallia, MD ’78, MPH, professor and chair, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.
This response, according to Dr. Tallia, required physicians in different departments to expand on important clinical skills. Dr. Siddiqui says his interprofessional teams have become more efficient—a silver lining that
he hopes continues long after the
“I have only been able
to do this because
of the resources we have at the school,” Shiraz Siddiqui, MD, associate professor of family medicine and community health, says.
“The collaborations have been epic.”
Robert Wood Johnson | MEDICINE 29