THE WEIGHT OF THE PANDEMIC FIRST CAUGHT UP WITH NEW York City ER physician Jane Kim in April. After spending weeks caring for seriously ill patients, she learned of four deaths among her “work family.” Three died of the virus, another from suicide. Her grief “halted” her, she says: “You can’t think. You can’t move. You can’t breathe.”
‘Had this been handled differently, doctors wouldn’t be getting burned out.’—PATRICK PAVWOSKI, Michigan neurologist Since then, Kim, 39, has leaned on friends, family and therapy to cope. She’s also heartened that doctors now better understand how to treat COVID-19 compared with those early, uncertain days. But as cases rise nationwide, she worries that doctors are about to face a “tsunami” of patients. “I fear that we’re not ready—emotionally, physically, mentally—to go…
