Dentists, Physicians Offices Hit Hardest During April’s Loss Of 1.4M Health Care Jobs

Modern Healthcare: Healthcare Loses 1.4 Million Jobs In April As Unemployment Rate Hits 14.7%
Healthcare employment held remarkably steady during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009. Not so with the COVID-19 pandemic.The healthcare industry lost 1.4 million jobs in April, preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show. The numbers lay bare COVID-19's economic damage, as businesses shuttered amid stay-at-home orders implemented in mid- to late-March. The healthcare economy tends to be largely immune to reductions in consumer demand from income drops, said Neale Mahoney, a health economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. (Bannow, 5/8)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Nurse Dies After Treating A Coronavirus Patient
The decision that Celia Marcos made, the one that would ultimately steal years from her life, had been hard-wired after decades working as a nurse. On the ward that she oversaw at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, a man with COVID-19 had stopped breathing. Marcos’ face was covered only with a thin surgical mask, and obtaining a more protective N95 mask before entering his room would have wasted valuable time, her colleagues say. (Karlamangla, 5/10)

The New York Times: Paramedics, Strained In The Hot Zone, Pull Back From CPR
The calls for patients in cardiac arrest came in one after another. A 39-year-old man, followed by a 65-year-old, whose neighbor called 911 after getting no response when he rang the doorbell. Then a 52-year-old woman’s heart stopped, as did that of a 90-year-old, who had collapsed on her bedroom floor. The ambulances turned on their sirens and screamed through red lights. But what the paramedics did after rushing to the victims — or more precisely, what they did not do — is a window into how a deadly virus has reshaped emergency medicine. (Callimachi, 5/10)

Modern Healthcare: After Weeks Of Dire Hospital Conditions, Doctors And Nurses Face Their Own Mental Health Crisis
For Dr. Joseph Herrera, the past eight weeks have seemed like a lifetime. Herrera used to spend his days treating sports injuries as chairman of rehabilitation medicine at Mount Sinai Health System. Then the number of Covid-19 cases started to rise. Hospitals reached capacity in a matter of days as an invisible enemy stormed emergency rooms. ...Herrera fears he will bring home the virus. He strips down in his garage, then gets straight in the shower. He agonizes over refusing to see his mother, who had a stroke in August, as she recovers with other family members. But he wants her to live. (Henderson, 5/7)

CNN: Doctors Without Borders Dispatched To New Mexico To Help The Navajo Nation 
At least two teams from Doctors Without Borders are working with Native American communities in New Mexico to help curb the spread of coronavirus, the organization told CNN. A nine-person team arrived in Gallup late April and has been working with the Navajo Nation since, said aid worker Jean Stowell, who heads the organization's US Covid-19 response team. The team expects to remain there until June. (Spells, 5/11)

Boston Globe: From The Field To The Front Line: Senior College Athletes Jump Into Service At Area Hospitals 
Senior student-athletes working in the healthcare field have lost their graduations, senior weeks, and final season of organized athletics, but instead of sulking, they have exchanged helmets and gloves for protective masks and face shields. Early mornings and late nights on practice fields and in gyms have been replaced by shifts on COVID-19 floors. (Chase, 5/8)

Boston Globe: Harvard Medical School Student Creates COVID-19 Resources In Over 30 Languages 
Compelled by the COVID-19 outbreak, Pooja Chandrashekar spoke to mobile health clinic workers across the city about their needs during the pandemic. ...She decided to take action, creating the COVID-19 Health Literacy Project. Chandrashekar rallied a group of students from more than 30 universities to create fact sheets in languages not commonly represented in the American health care system. She tweeted about her effort on March 14 and included an interest form in a subsequent tweet that garnered more than 500 responses. From there, she formed a still-growing coalition of over 175 medical students. (Griffin, 5/10)

Boston Globe: Young Medical Residents Worry Their Lives Are On The Line As They Treat Coronavirus Patients 
Resident doctors, like Wood, finished with schooling and training for specialized medical careers, are on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis gripping the nation. Their jobs were notoriously punishing long before the pandemic began. Residents frequently log 80-hour weeks for little more than minimum wage, once all their working hours are tallied, while carrying mountains of student loan debt. It’s a system designed to test the physical and mental limits of the next generation of health care providers — and to instill an ethic of professional sacrifice, for when sacrifice is required. (Pan, 5/9)

WBUR: 'It Just Broke Me': Health Workers On The Front Lines Struggle For Time To Grieve Patients Lost To COVID-19 
Clinicians on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic are seeing patients pass away at what can feel like an extreme rate. They have to handle the grief of those deaths while tending to other patients that still need their care. For many, it’s a struggle to manage those emotions. For some health workers, it can have devastating consequences for their emotional health and well-being. (Chen, 5/11)

Stateline: Hospice Care Continues — Without The Human Touch 
If anyone in the health care industry might have been expected to be prepared to face the grim toll from COVID-19, it was hospice care providers whose purpose even in normal times is to usher the dying to peaceful, pain-free endings. Yet even hospice care workers have found their professional lives altered in unimagined ways. The pandemic introduces fear and risk into their daily routines while limiting the arsenal of customary tools they wield to bring comfort to the dying and bereaved. (Ollove, 5/1!)