Well I'm going to meet Jesus today and Michelle and I have had no end of fun on text with that. He's our fourth interviewee and our only clinical path candidate - we are losing Rex in June he's CP and BDQ is also CP so Brent, Maria, and Melody are towing the clin path line right now (Rex gave up CP on the condition of staying until June he was ready to bail in the fall but we appreciate his willingness to help us out). We don't hire often so this has been a stressful time and we will meet on Thursday to make our preliminary decisions. Honestly I wish we could hire them all but our hospital contract is pending and we can't afford to be flush with pathologists.
Jesus has been in the states for about six years or so originally from Mexico City. Maria is from Mexico City too so she is excited and Melody had the rec from a friend she trained with (we tried mass advertising once before I came on and got a bunch of yoo hoos so that's not an option) and his training looks excellent. He was going to come on Friday but is getting a lot of job offers that are giving deadlines (so silly people take advantage of those just out of fellowship and pressure them) so today it is. Somehow hemepath is a lot harder to find these days than anatomic. Melody said he sounds lovely on the phone so I'm excited to meet him and he seems to have picked Little Rock as he and his wife's first choice if everything works out.
Brian seems to have turned a corner. Cautiously optimistic. He was able to withstand MRI yesterday without intubation and all the scary shit was ruled out. He has lost 24 pounds since December 1st (muscle atrophy can lead to gait issues and he did NOT have much to lose he was too skinny already) and they are thinking his hallucinations are from lack of sleep from coughing and Covid pneumonia not encephalitis or myelitis (which was our big concern). I saw Yousef yesterday and he is a neuropsychologist he rounds at St. Vincent's. He told me about a girl he knows who contracted it in August at Fville and she has vision loss and is having to learn to walk again after severe transverse myelitis. It's so unpredictable how this thing is going to affect people.
My doc mom book club texted some interesting stats from med exec committee yesterday (Kewen). Currently 20% of total admisssions are due to Covid. 45-50% of ICU pts are Covid. Total in house Covid at Baptist LR only are 111. If Covid + requiring ICU but not vent, about 40% mortality. If ICU requiring vent, 75% mortality. If vent + CRRT (continuous renal replacement therapy aka dialysis my dad had this for a short stint and it was scary as hell) 85-90% mortality - only 4 at BMC have survived this. There has been misinformation disseminated that if you had the infection you have to wait 90 days for the vaccine. 3 weeks out and symptom free you can get it.
Also importantly Wellington Pharmacy has a website where you can sign up for vaccines through phase 1C. My rad doc mom friend who shared has a husband with history of hypertension so he qualifies for phase 1C she signed him up yesterday. Wellington is one of the pharmacies that does the antigen test - we researched before going to see my dad. Phase 1C is currently not predicted to play out until April but still. Get on the list.
Yousef said his wife is a pharmacist at St Vincent rehab they are currently overflow for Covid and she has witnessed six deaths in the last week. She is not trained to run crash carts and not prepared to witness deaths but nevertheless that's our new alternate reality. We got an alarming text last week from some admin assistant asking us to be prepared to chip in but that hasn't really born out I'm still hunkered down in the lab. Lunch reads yesterday were Caligula and new modes of snake transportation (lasso!). Nice to know there are still academic niches out there debating history and snake transportation. Happy Wednesday. Much love, Elizabeth
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