From Helping Patients to Helping Government: Applying Lessons Learned as a COVID Nurse

There were many lessons learned and takeaways from COVID throughout the pandemic and others that are ongoing. This is the story of one former COVID ICU nurse, now a medical reviewer with J29. This is how she is now applying her skills in taking care of people, the insights she carries forward, to ensure government has what it needs to make informed decisions.

COVID Frontlines

Working at a major center for clinical research and the home of some of the top medical programs in America, Laura Sirles and her nursing team worked with some of the patients most impacted by COVID in the southeast. Hearing stories in the media, and then living with the reality, was the hardest thing many medical professionals had ever faced. Here are just some of the takeaways:

Family – Inside and Outside the Home – is Everything

Working directly with COVID patients meant taking risks, personal risks and to some degree, extending that risk to families. It was a sacrifice everyone personally connected to medical professionals faced. “In order to protect my family, I had layers of process, strict rules about shoes I wore in the hospital, what I wore in the car and what came into the house and how. It required my husband hiding our daughter from me when I arrived home so I could shower and change before I gave in to her request to be held.”

Faced with a growing demand for products like laundry sanitizer, Laura found her family extended beyond her four walls, as people in the community would buy up such needed supplies, dropping them on her front porch to ensure she had what was needed to care for patients, and protect her family.

Hospital Family

Part of what made the pace and emotional toll of COVID manageable was a manager Laura refers to as one of the best she has ever had. Protecting her nursing team, twice daily half hour breaks, and an hour at lunch were strictly enforced. “When it was time, someone would come and force you to leave, to take the downtime, grab some food, get a break from it all. Sometimes we would just sit in the breakroom and stare at each other processing the day.”

That self-care, time to absorb, to rest, to decompress, was critical in helping the team deal with the daily toll. Laura says the support of coworkers and management was important, from the lens of knowing it was there, but also for the reprieve it allowed throughout the day.

Seeing Patients as People

COVID forced, on a large scale, medical professionals to become family to patients. Not the one-off situation of a patient without family, the work became a daily routine of standing in for family not allowed to be present, hearing goodbyes as patients had what would be final conversations with loved ones. “We would have requests from people to play music to family members as they passed, to just make sure someone was there with them to the end. It was hard being there for someone you didn’t know, realizing you were not ‘their person’ but knowing you were all they had.”

Letting the Walls Down and Next Steps

After the first wave of COVID, when some of the restrictions came down and rules were lifted, there was a collective sigh of relief, and a pause, and then it came back. “That was as hard as anything. There was frustration and anger that we were back where we started from. The death toll may not have been as high but those who ended up in hospital were still very sick and it still took a toll on us all.”

Considering how she could best continue to help people, balance the needs of her growing family, and apply her lessons learned, Laura recently took on a new role as a medical reviewer. “There are a lot of unique treatments, equipment needs and so on that COVID drove. Being able to translate what is in records, and understanding what it means. Some of it is putting together informational guidelines and history so others understand what happened, what they are seeing, helping government officials who will be making decisions do so from an informed position.”

Still an Opportunity to Remember

During COVID there were examples across the country of tribute paid to medical staff, of public thanks and recognition. Just because the worst of the pandemic is over, that does not mean it is time to forget and move on. “J29 recently gave me the chance to go back and see my team, to take them supplies and treats. It blessed me in a way that hasn’t happened in a long time and did my heart a lot of good to give something back to this part of my family.”

The Ultimate Lessons

Looking back at working through COVID, Laura says it was hard at the time to realize it literally was the hardest experience many of the hospital staff would ever have to work through. “At the same time, it was hard to see the light at the end of it all.”

That being said, one takeaway for her, and for others like her, was not to give up hope. “We had patients we believed weren’t going to get better that we saw walk out of the hospital. It is important to remember that even when things are gloomy, even when a situation seems hopeless, you can still have that patient that is going to walk themselves out of the hospital.”

Another very important takeaway is taking what was learned to move forward. While the death of a patient was hard and took a toll, that is never the end of the story. “Now I have the chance to help those families and others by helping the government make informed decisions about COVID cases. Knowing I can take my knowledge and do something good with it makes it all just a little easier.”

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