Tiffany M. Osborn was positive about the trajectory of the Pandemic after she received her vaccine. She is sad and frustrated to see so many COVID patients in the intensive care unit.
Washington University School of Medicine's Matt Miller.
The endurance of intensive care workers is being tested by the latest surge in COVID-19 cases.
"You feel like you don't know what you're doing," says Dr. Nguyet Nguyen, a pulmonary critical care specialist at the hospital. All of these people are dying and I'm working as hard as I can.
Tiffany Osborn is a professor of surgery and emergency medicine. We see a lot of needless suffering.
The majority of the patients in the intensive care unit are unvaccinated. Neither doctor expected to be caring for so many patients after vaccines became widely available.
Despite advances in preventing and treating COVID-19, the toll on ICU workers has increased steadily.
From fear to fatigue.
We had no idea what this was and we were scared.
"We didn't know how to prevent it, and we didn't know how to treat it, and there were a lot of concerns that many of us had about, can we bring this home to our family?"
She parked the RV in her driveway. She struggled with the burden of watching her patients die.
Sometimes, the best Osborn could do was make sure the dying patient's family got to say goodbye over the phone. One of the calls she helped facilitate from the intensive care unit still hurts her.
I heard a voice on the phone that said, 'I love you, grandpa.' She says that she only had to close the door as she left. It's a very helpless feeling.
A glass door in the intensive care unit at Barnes-Jewish Hospital has a message of love and support written on it.
Washington University School of Medicine's Matt Miller.
When vaccines began to arrive in the late 2020s, Osborn saw reason for hope.
She says that when she got the vaccine, she felt the pressure off of her shoulders.
Health care workers could wear something other than masks and gloves. It looked like vaccinations would reduce the flow of critically ill patients.
It hasn't happened a year later.
Most of the people who come to the intensive care unit are still unvaccinated. It's very frustrating for us to deal with that on a day to day basis.
Respiratory therapists and intensive care nurses provide most of the hands-on care in the intensive care unit. Many retired early or switched jobs in St. Louis.
She thinks she knows why.
She says that they are used to dealing with death, but not at the level they saw with COVID. People who were so young, and people who didn't have to die.
The last-ditch life-support machines known as ECMO are still being used to place healthy young COVID patients.
She says they have enough capacity for about 12 machines. Half of them were used for pregnant women.
Most of the pregnant women were unvaccinated.
People who haven't been vaccined should know what happens to COVID patients in an intensive care unit.
She says that people don't understand that COVID is going to kill you. It's going to kill you a lot quicker than you think.
When patients arrive in the intensive care unit, she often tells them that they need to make decisions about their care immediately because many of them are no longer able to speak or think clearly.
It is necessary to braid for obsidian.
Each new wave of COVID-19 has been like a punch in the face for many health care professionals. We felt like we were over the peak of Delta when Omicron came in.
The teams are better prepared now than they were at the beginning. New drugs that promise to reduce the severity of infections are on their way.
The nation needs to focus on prevention rather than treatment.
She says that this holiday season is all about the people we care about. "You don't want it to be675316753167531675316753167531675316753167531675316753167531675316753167531
