Thanks for doing it. I remember when I was a Neurosurgery Resident we started seeing all these middle aged guys come in with cerebral toxo and no one knew what it was. It was clearly contagious. I remember one guy whose mother wouldn’t go in his room without gloves. Before we even started isolating them. Nurses asked me if I wasn’t concerned about getting it in the OR. It hadn’t really even occurred to me and I remember thinking, “it’s the job”. You asked for it. How many doctors died from malaria? That was my attitude all along. It’s a privilege.
Now I’m retired I wonder, though. Maybe I should have thought about my family a little more. Maybe I was just lucky I got away with it. You are taking risks. There’s one doctor on a vent right now over it. Your perspective changes over time, maybe.
Maybe. I’m a relative oldtimer as well. I had the same experience as you did. When I was in med school there was something called GRID (gay related immunodeficiency). By the time I was an intern it was called AIDS. We still weren’t sure of the causative agent or how it was transmitted but knew it was uniformly fatal and i. a rather nasty way.... I was admitting 2 and 3 patients a day with it. If i couldn’t handle it I would have quit then.
it is part of practicing medicine and you learn to deal with it or you get out. At this point I am high risk. I am 60 with asthma. I’m still not afraid my life is firmly in Gods hands and I trust Him. That said so far I have not see. anything that justifies the widespread panic we are seeing