My eight-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter know that they have two doctor parents, but they likely don’t realize that their obstetrician mom and ER dad are on the front lines. We try to keep the mood light at home, and while we are healthy, we try to hug them as much as we can, knowing that at any moment, those hugs may have to stop for a very long time.
Sometimes they seem unfazed by current events, but my daughter does ask if we had a similar virus when I was growing up—her effort to gauge what is normal. My son, on the other hand, is particularly interested in the coronavirus. He asks about it almost daily: “Has the coronavirus come to New York?” “Do you have the coronavirus, Mommy?” I once confidently told him no, but that was over a month ago, which now seems like a lifetime away.
Our daily family life is only possible with a strong sense of belonging. Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital Labor and Delivery and the Ob/Gyn department are my family. They are a safe place even in the most challenging of times. Together we will do our best for our patients. Together we will be stronger in the end.
Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, MD, MSc, Vice Chair for Faculty Development and the Ellen Jacobson Levine and Eugene Jacobson Professor of Women’s Health at NYP/CUIMC
April 09
COVID-19 hits the second, and highest, peak for the department this week in number of diagnoses.
April 10
For the first time, the US reports more than 2,000 COVID-19 deaths in a single day.
Social distancing measures in NY are beginning to work: Governor Cuomo announces decline in new hospitalizations.
For the first time, New York discharges more patients from the ICU than it admits.
April 11
US passes Italy to become the country with the most deaths from COVID-19.
April 12
Richard U. Levine, MD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, passes away in a tragic bicycle accident in upstate New York on April 12, 2020. Dr. Levine has been a beloved member of the department for more than 50 years, and his sudden passing is a terrible blow to the department during an already challenging time.
Our Ob/Gyn research team is the first to be redeployed to Labor and Delivery. We are a team of 20 with varied backgrounds: a nurse, foreign-trained medical doctors, medical assistants, and coordinators. We have our fears, but the responses we receive from patients, nurses, and doctors give us courage.
We do the most basic of tasks for patients: holding the phone while a patient delivers so that their partner can witness the birth of their child, showing her how to change a diaper or swaddle her baby, helping her out of bed, preparing diaper bags for discharge, and filling up jugs with ice and water. Every task helps someone, and that is what matters in the end.
We know how to support pregnant women and new moms. We’d much rather serve in our department than any other department in the hospital. We know that our department will provide us with every support possible, and we know our leadership has our back.
It’s not all rosy, and we knew that going in. We marshal all of our energy and skills to fight the coronavirus scourge; we overcome the fear and step up to do what we believe is “the right thing.”
Sabine Bousleiman, RN, MSN, MSPH, Program Director in Research in the Department of Ob/Gyn at NYP/CUIMC, with contributions from other redeployed members of the Ob/Gyn research team