Adina Kalet, MD, MPH
As our leaders focus on the immediate and evolving challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kern Institute can provide a place to discuss and reflect on the transformative learning opportunities these difficult times offer.
While we have little control over this rapidly evolving situation, we can respond in community. Sometimes, the moments are dramatic, but more often they manifest as simple opportunities to express and appreciate courage, compassion, and accountability in small ways.
In this spirit, we will deliver this weekly communication highlighting caring and character amid your full inbox of technical emails. Our aim is to support and celebrate caregivers, provide a forum, and examine the role of trainees as we explore uncharted territory together.
I invite you, and everyone in our community, to contribute your reflections as we navigate these times together. Let me start with my own reflection...
My Reflection of 9/11 in NYC
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I dropped my daughter with our babysitter and my son at his second grade class. The sun was shining and the air clear as I took the steps down to the New York City subway platform and headed to work at the medical school. When I emerged from the subway, I noticed people on the street, who normally would be rushing off to work, were congregating in small groups or staring at their phones. I passed a television and saw, for the first time, The Twin Towers, with gray smoke streaming from their midsections. The rest of that day was not a blur. Every minute was burned into my memory and still replays. Within twenty-four hours, I was on a team of physicians, all with prior group facilitation training, deployed to provide psychosocial support for the residents who waited anxiously for the surge of very sick patients that never materialized.
Right now, physicians, nurses, health care and public health administrators around the world are faced with dramatic surges of very ill patients, limited resources, and difficult ethical decisions. Others wait for the surge that will surely come. We are them. They are us.
For this first issue, we've collected reflections from students, staff, residents and faculty on how the new restrictions have affected them. I hope you'll find comfort and support in this weekly exchange of stories, as we celebrate caring and character during this pandemic.
Please consider sharing your thoughts by responding to next week's prompt below. Thank you, stay well and keep in touch.
Adina Kalet, MD MPH is the Director of the Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Institute for the Transformation of Medical Education and holder of the Stephen and Shelagh Roell Endowed Chair at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
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