Third-year resident describes a day in the life of an ER doctor
It’s cold outside as Anita Chary makes the short walk from her apartment to the Longwood Medical Area. Just before her 7 a.m. start time she arrives at one of the designated Brigham and Women’s staff entrances on Francis Street and holds up her smartphone. A health care worker checks Chary’s symptom-tracker app to ensure she completed the checklist of questions. The top of the screen reads “Cleared for work,” in bold green letters. “If you are positive for any symptoms” of COVID-19, Chary says, “you can’t enter the building.” She is given a mask to wear, then winds her way through tunnels to her department, where she dons blue scrubs, face shield, and goggles and begins another nine-hour shift in an emergency room, the front line of the nation’s worst public health crisis in more than a century. Chary, who is in her third of four years at the Brigham...