How Healthcare Workers are Affected

Welcome back to my blog! As the semester comes to an end, we are left reflecting on the experiences brought to us during COVID-19. We are all adjusting to life in a pandemic and developing new routines. As I talked about last week, I am writing my autoethnography on healthcare workers during COVID 19. My specific perspective is going to be coming from a pre-med student who is also a healthcare worker. I am working and staying in school full-time during this time. 

For my primary research, I am interviewing healthcare workers that are in school and that are not. I wanted to get a broader perspective to see how the pandemic is affecting healthcare workers at different stages in their professional lives. I wanted to look at the similiraties and differences among different healthcare workers. 

My secondary research to date, has focused on the shortage of PPE hospitals in America have faced, school closures in the US, and the effect of school closures on pre-med students. 

I plan on including three narratives beyond my own. I have interviewed a pre-med student, Nayiri, who has made many appearances on this blog. I also have interviewed my brother, a paramedic, and plan to interview a coworker in the emergency room. 

Based upon my interviews and from my own narrative, Nayiri’s interview, and my brother’s I have found some similarities. Nayiri works as an ER and Trauma Tech and so do I. Work did not used to be a “scary” thing to go to. We went to work as normal and did not experience intense anxieties about exposures. Now, the fear of exposure is something that is always an underlying thought. What I thought was interesting was that both Nayiri and Dylan spoke about the fear of bringing the virus home to the family. They didn’t fear getting sick themselves. Instead their fear lied in infecting their loved ones. 

There were also some differences in their interviews. Dylan spoke about how people call the EMS workers “heroes” yet they do not treat them like this. Since the pandemic has struck he has been denied using restrooms in restaurants and hospitals. He has been denied service at restaurants. Instead of having more support, the EMS workers are being treated as dirty vectors. Even the hospitals have restricted paramedics from entering the hospitals. This was an interesting look into the pre-hospital setting as the EMS workers are out in public in uniform. As a hospital worker, this is not something Nayiri or I would likely expereience. In a time when everyone is praising healthcare workers for their heroics, it was interesting to hear that he is actually experiencing worse treatment now.

Nayiri also spoke about the difficulty of being a pre-med student now online. The subjects she is taking are very difficult and much harder to learn being in quarantine. She depends on the Chapman Community and without this, the school load feels much heavier. I also am feeling this same experience. 

My primary and secondary research has shown that healthcare workers in different sectors are all being affected in similar ways, but have their own unique experiences. My primary research has arisen new questions that I plan on looking into. I would like to gather more data on how students, specifically STEM students, are coping during this time. I would like to add in some more secondary research and if you guys have anything you would think be interesting to look into I would love the recommendations!