Albany Medical Center (AMC) has shown tremendous leadership throughout this pandemic both in the community and within the hospital. In response to COVID-19, Dr. Dennis P. McKenna, President and CEO at AMC, and Ferdinand Venditti, MD, Executive Vice President for System Care Delivery and Hospital General Director have been providing updates and communicating with faculty, staff, and the community at large. We are very proud of how our AMC community has come together during this unprecedented time.
As for Med-Peds, the pandemic has shown us just how important Med-Peds physicians can be as front line responders. Our own Med-Peds residents and attendings have stepped up to take care of patients of all ages both in the office and in the hospital. Our office continues to provide care to our patients during the pandemic, and has trained both the faculty and residents in telephone medicine as necessary. We continue to fight and prepare to battle the long lasting indirect effects that COVID will have on the lives of our patients, family and friends.
Overall, while everyone has worked hard to care for patients, our program administration continues to keep both physicians and patients safe with appropriate PPE and redesigning clinical experiences. As far as academics are concerned, both the Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Departments have developed innovative approaches to delivering an educational curriculum during this time.
Our Med-Peds clinic faculty volunteered their time to help out on the floors and in the ICU to relieve some of the burden on the hospitalists and intensivists. Similarly, our Med-Peds residents showed their spirit and grit as they volunteered to change their electives to hospital based rotations where they could care for patients.
“Our chair, Dr. Philbin, asked for volunteers to help. I was assigned to the COVID unit on D3N during one of the first weeks of the surge. This also happened to be the week we took transfers from NYC. I worked alongside some excellent medical students, who developed a process to allow families to see their loved ones on iPads while visitor restrictions were in place. Despite the clear chaos that this pandemic brought, it was incredibly rewarding to be a part of the team that brought patient-centered, empathic care to patients and their families.”
Dr. Danielle Wales, Primary Care Clinical Attending
“The COVID-19 pandemic came with great uncertainty. While working on the COVID units during the surge, I was impressed by the courageous efforts of x-ray techs, speech pathologists, occupational and physical therapists, nurses and providers and their willingness to work with the severely ill. It was a tremendous team effort.”
Dr. Brady Bowen, Primary Care & Sports Medicine Attending
“I was on vacation the week everything shut down… and came back to 3 weeks of ED, 3 weeks of floors, and 3 weeks of ID. From the moment I came back, I could feel the constant buzz of excitement in the air, the preparations, and timely updates on guidelines that were changing on the daily to keep us safe. I personally never experienced a shortage of PPE. When there were issues with supply from one vendor, the hospital had already obtained supply from a different chain. The hospital made a lot of changes (again and again) in a very short amount of time to meet the needs of regulatory guidelines while keeping the workforce safe. On the floors, the general resident teams were protected and rules were in place to limit patient interaction with COVID patients to keep us safe. Nonessential elective residents were pulled to do virtual electives from home to keep the workforce safe.”
Dr. Mae Huo, PGY-4 (Class of 2020)