Medical/Wellness Professions
A Former ER Doctor, Who Has A Concierge Practice Offers His Views
What if a condition for returning to work, school was everyone wearing masks. The mantra has been “only people who are sick need to wear masks. But we don’t know who’s sick, so what if everyone wore masks???
China is going back to work and the TV pictures have people wearing masks. Remember, according to Dr. James Robb, UCSD, who has been studying coronaviruses since the 1970’s, a major reason for an average person to wear a mask is to prevent you from touching your face. We know the virus stays on surfaces. It is really hard not to touch a foreign surface if you are out getting food, let alone returning to work. The mask stops you from touching your nose, eyes, etc. by accident before you have washed your hands.
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ER Doctor Continues His Thinking
It’s interesting, since I wrote the earlier note, I have been thinking a lot about the practicality of it all. There seem to be two different issues that we need to separate for the “Return to Work” vision.
One is purely mechanical. How do we prevent employees and customers from infecting each other if we assume that a significant percentage of the people interacting are infected? It becomes a mechanical issue, not a medical one. Have doors that open automatically so people don’t touch door handles or have antiseptic covers on anything people touch-door handles, computer keys, scanners, copy machines, refrigerator doors, light switches-make them all self-sterilizing. Put barriers between workspaces, reconfigure restaurants so each table is isolated from tables around it-put up clear plastic shields? Continue masks and social distancing.
I think the other big issue is self-management and self-discipline. I think giving the parameters to employers, Small Business owners, and letting them come up with solutions could yield results we haven’t thought of. I think that offering solutions as found on this site empowers employers to take charge. “Don’t let your employees or customers get infected”.
I don’t think testing, treatment, vaccines will solve this in the next few weeks or months, but these social distancing measures will make it safer to open up the country.
We don’t know if infected people are developing immunity or how long it will last.
We don’t know if we will get a vaccine or a treatment. We can’t count on or wait for that.
Emphasize who is at risk and make them responsible for their behavior. I think empowering people to protect themselves rather than “forcing it upon them “may work. Sweden seems to be succeeding with that approach.
And More
I think it is time to rethink the current concept of waiting to reopen the country until we have adequate testing or treatment or vaccines.
I think we know enough about the virus to venture out and restart the world that we had and let science catch up.
How can you avoid getting coronavirus?
1) Know where your hands are at all times.
2) Wash your hands often (soap and water or hand sanitizer) especially after you touch a door handle or other commonly touched objects.
3) Don’t touch your face.
4) Social distancing.
5) Wear a mask anytime you may be around others within 6 feet.
6) Stay home if you have a fever, cough, or lose your sense of smell or taste and get tested.
I think if we did these things, we could safely begin to get back toward some semblance of normal. I think that normal will not include shaking hands, hugging and large gatherings for a while but it will safely get the economy going.
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A Marriage and Family Therapist Meets Patients in a COVID-19 World
In one sense, there is a not a great difference between now and the past in how I see patients.We sit together in a room. We are a comfortable distance from each other. And we talk through the issues of life, and the specific life before me.
But, in another sense, the world has turned upside down. I am meticulous that we are sitting ten feet apart. There is no touching, hugging and other physical contact which is common in my practice. My office is thoroughly wiped down with disinfectant before my patient arrive, and then wiped down after they leave. I ask my patient to wash his/her hands before we meet, and also afterwards. If they choose to wear gloves, they may. If they choose to wear a mask, they may, but I do not require it and I do not wear a mask.
When I confirm a meeting, I ask a few questions about their health. No one has come to a meeting with me if they were not feeling perfectly well.
I open both the door to the outside and the door to my office so that we are not working in confined quarters.
I have done a few tele-therapy sessions, but not to my satisfaction.
My clients are very anxious about everything.
Life goes on.
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A Wellness And Weight Loss Company
My work falls in a fairly unique place in light of the Coronavirus Pandemic. I am the VP of Products and Product Development for a Wellness and Weight Loss company. We are overseen by a medical staff of 240 doctors and nurses and provide a wide array of products and services that support the health and wellness of an at-risk population, namely obese and overweight people. The situation has presented our business with previously unthought of challenges and opportunities (I won’t say “previously unforeseen” because pandemics have been predicted and talked about for years by some of the world’s top thinkers – most of us chose to ignore the warnings, or simply didn’t have enough incentive to heed the warnings).
The challenges are obvious (declining patient visits, lack of funds for non-essential purchases, fear, uncertainty, etc.). The opportunities are what I’d like to discuss a bit more. As a relatively small company, we have been nimble enough to make major shifts to our business in very short order. We identified a number of products that we thought would be of value to our patients and worked very quickly to bring those products to market. We sourced a Vitamin C injection and quickly offered daily doses to our patients. We rushed a line of Cold Pressed Juice Shots to market that are packed with Vitamins and Minerals designed to boost the immune system. We sourced a Slow Release Vitamin C capsule, paid a rush fee, and will have that to market within 4 weeks (lead time is generally 10-12 weeks for such a product).
Another aspect of our business that required quick action was our distribution channels for our products. Typically, we sell items through our clinics. Due to the lockdown, we knew our “sign-ins” would decline. Thus, we quickly beefed up our online presence to offer more products on our site with quicker delivery and special pricing. We then signed up with Grubhub to offer our medical meals and supplements through the Grubhub app. This allows for delivery within 1 hour.
In general, we have learned a number of valuable things about our business from this pandemic. One, our business can be run nearly as effectively, or more effectively, with a leaner staff. Two, we can operate effectively with less in-person management office time. Three, we can compress the time to market for products when the right pressure and urgency is placed on our vendors.
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What Would Help Me Return To Work
I agree that we are going to be constrained by COVID-19 for a very long time, probably until a vaccine becomes available to the general population. However, and I think it addresses our future work environment, especially in terms of risk/reward, maybe we would also be greatly calmed by an effective early-onset treatment where getting Covid-19 is not as scary as it is now. These are the so-called therapeutics, a term we have all come to know since March 1. Having one or more of the current trials show effectiveness in reducing the mortality rate, and perhaps even finding something that could be a prescription at-home treatment would be a game changer in my mind.
The fear of the virus would be lessened if it meant being a few days home in bed rather than an elevated chance of ending up in the ICU on a ventilator fighting for your life. Obviously, a vaccine would be the big win…until the virus mutates, and we end up in the same place as with the flu, where doctors guess every year which strains are most active and put those in the vaccine for that year.
Also getting confirmation about whether people are re-contracting COVID-19 would also be helpful, as some reports of people getting it again would be scary news. Hopefully those prove to be people who got false negative tests or were not fully cured (relapse) rather than someone contracting the virus a second time.
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A Clinical Psychologist Writes:
Your paragraph describing a healthy desensitization to the germs dropping like bombs in a war zone truly resonated with me. The internal conflict I am battling with is holding two opposing thoughts at the same time without going insane: my thought to stay safe and my thought to fight back rolling around in my brain simultaneously.
Here is my overarching concern:
A big part of keeping our immunological systems strong includes the daily exposing ourselves to germs which are met and overcome by our body’s innate and organic ability to defeat them; creating a physiological resilience and overall good health. Isolation from this healthy biological process may ultimately weaken our immune systems because they are not exercising the important process of naturally building immunity to conquer germs as our bodies were set up to do. Ultimately, we risk getting sick by way of other germs we will eventually encounter because we have interrupted that necessary biologic process through quarantine.
A mindful and deliberate plan to stick our toes back into the germy world so that our bodies can continue to do what evolution has mandated them to do is an important strategy to develop, moving forward. Hiding out from the enemy will not protect us in the long run. Just my two cents…
