1 - Stories from a Pandemic Part II: The Space Between
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What legal steps does The Nocturnist take to protect patient privacy?
At the Nocturinous, we are careful to ensure that all stories comply with healthcare privacy laws. Details may have been changed to ensure patient confidentiality. All views expressed are those of the person speaking and not their employer.
You're listening to the Nocturneist Stories from a Pandemic. I'm Emily Silverman.
Heroes. They help, protect, save, motivate, guide. They instill hope. They remind people of good and they do what no one else will. They're often portrayed as more than human. Though they may die, their deaths have meaning. Doctors, nurses, and other essential workers have been showered with praise from the beginning of the pandemic.
How did the nursing‑home doctor’s career change affect their mental health after the pandemic?
But the hero trope can be weaponized too. It can sweep the missteps of leaders under the rug, it can hurt, it can exploit, and it can paper over the pain. How are healthcare workers holding up during this time? The Nocturnist is back with our second installment of Stories from a Pandemic. Today's episode is called The Space Between.
I'm better, I guess is probably the first thing I'd say. I quit my job and I started a new job. I'm now working at the VA as one of the nursing home docs, which is a big change from doing home based primary care, which is what I was doing before. I can't remember exactly when in July I left the last clip, but The last year's been awful. Absolutely awful. Residency was bad for all the reasons that residency is always bad, but At least I felt like in that setting I had some sense of camaraderie. The last year I turned felt so professionally alone. And now being a nursing home doc it's very different. There's much more of a team setting and I'm never alone. But there's so much recovering that I have to do just to, you know, be able to live my day to day.
I feel like There was a tidal wave. and I'm on a raft but nothing else has changed, you know, it's still overwhelming and just trying to keep my head above water. During the first six months of the pandemic, I lost two of my three living grandparents. My grandfather, who was someone I was incredibly close to. died at the end of February last year. I think from COVID. But at the time, you know, they weren't running PCRs. Um, it was something that was just starting to kind of bubble up in the news then. Even though he had this really sudden and kind of bizarre Acute illness. He didn't get tested and it wasn't really on anyone's radar. And then my grandmother on the other side of the country died.
What emotional challenges did the ICU physician describe while caring for COVID patients?
In May Shortly after her caregiver got sick with COVID, and she died not of covet but of just sort of increasing frailty. The dwindles. You know, things have kind of settled in the way that they do after loss and death, after a time. It doesn't feel as frantic as it did before. It just sort of feels melancholy. Since about this time last year, I felt like on this adrenaline kick. I talked about it with my brother, who's a second year president. he'll like finish a shift and be practically vibrating just from the intensity of the stress. And I said, Yeah, I remember, you know, those night float shifts were when I used to feel that the most and I feel like I have been sort of carrying that emotion this entire time.
I'm just so amped up by everything that's going on. that it's hard to just turn off. And it's getting slowly better from what I sometimes joke is the geriatrician's favorite therapeutic intervention, which is the passage of time. But I still feel dizzy and disoriented and Maybe a little altered at times.
How am I doing? I guess the the simple answer to that would be it's complicated. I, like many people, have never been through a pandemic. And I also have never had such a prolonged period of disruption. I was actually speaking with one of my friends the other day about How And I don't know if it's a uniquely American thing or if it's a a people everywhere thing, but how we're moving through the pandemic. Із пробляної фаніпої. Thousands of people are literally dying every day and we're all just sort of moving on about our lives like nothing is happening. Maybe it's because the stimulus has been on so long and so chronic.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What legal steps does The Nocturnist take to protect patient privacy?
0:00–0:50
2
How did the nursing‑home doctor’s career change affect their mental health after the pandemic?
0:50–3:29
3
What emotional challenges did the ICU physician describe while caring for COVID patients?
3:29–6:02
4
How does the emergency‑medicine resident explain burnout and coping during prolonged COVID shifts?
6:02–9:32
5
Why does the speech‑language therapist turn to Star Wars for spiritual comfort during the pandemic?
9:32–12:09
6
What does the host say about the “space between” heroism and the messy reality of frontline work?
12:09–15:23
7
How do the storytellers suggest we better acknowledge the hidden pain of healthcare workers?
15:23–17:41
8
What teaser and closing message does the episode end with for next week’s story?
17:41–33:17