This article is the fourth in a series of enterprise stories about individuals or groups of people in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community who have been acutely affected by the coronavirus pandemic. To read more articles like this one, visit the series’ introductory page or click the “Spotlight” tab above.
As a medical professional during the COVID-19 pandemic, LaToya Cooper has felt a massive amount of stress. The UNC Family Medicine nurse practitioner and her colleagues have seen a number of patients with serious health issues, with little time for rest.
“There are some doctors and nurses who have not been able to take a day off since the pandemic started,” Cooper said.
Cooper and her colleagues are not alone in this feeling. Perhaps no profession has been more strongly affected by the pandemic than health-care workers. Nurses, doctors and primary care providers all over the world have routinely had to change the way they do things to keep themselves and their patients safe from the coronavirus.
Coral Giovacchini, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Duke University Medical Center who has been on the front line taking care of COVID-19 patients, said the past year has been “both professionally and personally challenging.”
“As physicians and health care professionals, we like to always be able to take the best care of patients that we can,” Giovacchini said. “It’s hard when you’re facing something new and unknown, and you have to approach it with the tools that you’ve developed over the last years of your career.”
Health care providers in the Triangle said they’ve had to change how they conduct patient visits, what protocols are taken before in-person appointments and where patients can wait to be seen.
A big change to the medical profession has been the increasing use of telemedicine. Many health care professionals have been meeting with patients over video-communication platforms such as Zoom when possible.
Lisa Lackey, Cooper’s colleague and fellow nurse practitioner, has noted a huge increase in telemedicine consultations at their workplace.
“People really enjoy the convenience of telemedicine. As far as UNC Health Care, it (has) really helped to promote access for some groups of people who live far away or for whom transportation is an issue,” Lackey said.
Health-care professionals said the first step is to assess patients over the phone to see if an in-person visit is necessary or if patients may have had or been in contact with someone who has COVID-19. The evaluation helps health-care workers determine whether a telemedicine consultation will suffice.
Due to these changes, some medical professionals have noted a decline in the number of patients they see in-person. Cooper said that the number of patients visiting her office had dropped more than one-third since the start of the pandemic.
With the reduced number of patients, making an income has become difficult for some health-care providers. A study conducted last year by the Medical Group Management Association found that COVID-19 had a negative financial effect on 97% of the 724 medical practices surveyed.
Giovacchini said outpatient services have since rebounded at Duke University Medical Center. The number of patients at her post-COVID recovery clinic, which she founded to study the long-term effects of COVID-19 on survivors, has particularly picked up.
“Now we’re dealing with seeing patients, both for the usual types of pulmonary illnesses that we would see them for, plus ongoing, lingering COVID symptoms,” Giovacchini said.
These health care professionals have also seen changes in their personal lives. To cope with the stress of treating patients amid a pandemic, Giovacchini said she’s invested time in her family.
“Fortunately, everyone in my family has been healthy, and so even though I may not be able to see everybody, I’ve spent a lot of extra time trying to connect with family members and friends virtually,” she said.
