Moving Forward With COVID19

No, I’m not sick with COVID19 and luckily haven’t been.

When I refer to moving forward with it, I’m talking about living with this virus in our midst. That’s the reality now. It’s not going away…for a long time at least, and when it does there will be others behind it. Maybe not to the same degree but this world will never be virus free.

There’s a great article by Knute Berger in Crosscut this month: “What the 1918 Flu Can Teach Us About COVID and ‘Returning to Normal'”. It’s a perfect reality check about where we are in the trajectory of this pandemic.

My parents grew up during a time when diseases like tuberculosis and the 1918 flu, were still fresh memories. My experience as their child is part of what made many of the COVID19 protocols feel like second nature.

Frankly, it’s relieving that now, the act of protecting against airborne infections is better-accepted and more widely-understood.

My reality check

It’s March 2021 and we’re all commemorating one year of coping with a “new normal”. I’ve been lucky to continue working through the ups and downs with some financial help from the government.

Like many of us, I began with the mindset that this new situation (masking, disinfecting, distancing) would be temporary. But over the past 6 months or so, as we’ve all learned more about this particular virus, I’ve come to the following conclusions:

I will likely never again work without a mask.
I will always disinfect at this more rigorous level
The ventilation in the office space will always be on my radar.
I will continue to prevent patients from being in the same space for more than a few seconds.

“New Normal”

Given all these realizations, I find myself surrendering to the decreased capacity of my practice. I continue to see 70-80 % of the patients per day that I used to handle pre-pandemic. This is due to the time required to disinfect properly in between treatments and to maintain distance between patients.

Instead of continuing to think of this as a temporary state of affairs, it’s become time to accept facts. This is now my 100% capacity, and that will not be changing.

(Many of you have been feeling the impact by how difficult it is to find availability in the current schedule. I’m so grateful for everyone’s patience and understanding about this.)

This acceptance of the new status quo has in part led to a creative refresh of the appointment schedule. My hope is to ease the waiting lists for existing patients. At the same time it should help me tend to my own physical and mental health. This will mean extended hours spread over fewer days.

There’s a balancing act between delivering safe, effective care and doing so at the volume needed (both for patients and to meet my bottom line). It’s a delicate tightrope that I am constantly navigating and re-evaluating. Quality of care in the way I prefer to (stubbornly) do it, depends heavily on my own well being.

Just like for many of you, tending to my own health is a moving target. Needs change with age and life demands. The pandemic office protocols forced me to more honestly recognize these changes. It turns out that a decreased volume of patients, better spaced apart is actually better for me as well!