Sarah Lopez: Take a moment to thank the medical professionals in your life

While it has been more than a decade since I last worked in a clinical hospital role, I still remember even in “normal” times how hard that work can be. However, the past two years have taken it to a new level.

When you choose a career in medicine, you know you will see horribly sad things and the work will be demanding. But who could have imagined what it would be like two years into a pandemic?

Over the past several weeks, I have had the sobering privilege of volunteering at an Ascension Via Christi hospital in Wichita. The time I have spent helping bedside caregivers has been a reminder of how strenuous their work truly is. Going from room to room helping people move in and out of bed, helping them to the bathroom and cleaning them up when they can’t get up to go, bathing them, taking their vitals, ensuring they get their medication on time and so much more is physically demanding and exhausting work.

That’s especially true in the COVID-19 units, where they are doing all of this while fully gowned and double gloved and masked. It gets hot under all that so you often see nurses standing in front of the large fans circulating air on the unit to cool off while they fill in charts. Just going to the bathroom requires having to take off and put back all of the layers of personal protective equipment, which is at least a 10-minute process. As a result, finding time for a bathroom break can be difficult.

Beyond how physically demanding their work is, what drew my attention was how mentally and emotionally draining it has become. Going into the medical field you know some days will be harder than others. You know you will see people at their worst, in pain and scared, and patients die. Over the past two years, they have seen more death than they could have imagined. They bring iPads to the bedside so family members can say goodbye to loved ones before they are placed on a ventilator in case they don’t survive. And they hold the hands of patients in their final moments of life when family can’t be with them.

I talked to a nurse tech who recently had taken her exams to become an RN. She said there have been many days where she spent most of her shift cleaning up deceased patients prior to them being picked up by the mortuary. As she spoke of the toll that has taken on her mental health, all I could think about was how grateful I am that she and others are still willing to do this work, caring for people in our community who cannot care for themselves.

When COVID-19 hit, we rallied around our medical professionals. We called them heroes and told them that we had their backs. A year into the pandemic, they were exhausted, but the vaccine gave them hope that the end was in sight. As time wore on, the reality that nearly half of our community was not willing to be vaccinated sunk in, leaving them to feel as if they were alone in the fight.

In my limited time on the floor of our COVID-19 units, I was astonished by how many patients were so young and so sick. It is heartbreaking knowing how many people are not recovering from COVID and how many lives are being needlessly lost. Seeing people around my own age with pictures of their young children on the nightstand and having them share how scared they are that they might never be able to hug their babies again, hurt my soul.

I am sharing this so you can hear from these dedicated professionals, as I have. I know we are all tired of all things COVID. You and I can go about our lives and almost pretend this pandemic is behind us. Unfortunately, our medical community does not have that luxury. If they walk away, they know that those who need them most will pay the price.

So to our local medical professionals, please know how incredibly thankful I am for you and the sacrifices you’ve made and continue to make.

Sincerely, thank you.

To the rest of our community, please take a moment to thank the medical professionals in your life. You don’t have to walk in their shoes to know what a tremendous contribution they’re making to all of our lives.