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Sandy Pettit Durgin '80 Treating COVID-19 Patients
Sandy Pettit Durgin ’80 is the trauma program director at Crozer Chester Medical Center in Pennsylvania, where she is taking care of COVID-19 patients at least four days per week.
What does your job currently entail, and how has your job changed due to COVID-19?
My current position requires me to oversee the trauma program and ensure quality patient care for our trauma patients. I monitor adherence of the trauma providers to our practice guidelines and ensure that we comply fully with the standards of the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation. I also assist with surgical research and hospital quality committees.
Currently, I am supporting nurses on our COVID-19 patient units, at least three days per week. These duties include assisting patient care, obtaining supplies and acting as a resource for the staff nurses. I am rotating to both evening and night shifts, as well as weekends. The two remaining days of the week, I help COVID units ensure that their needs are met on a system level.
What does a typical work day look like?
Typically, I get to work before 7 a.m. and go home after 5 p.m. I attend trauma morning report, which is the backbone of our performance improvement efforts. Trauma performance improvement is a critical review of patient care to reduce variances in practice by the team, identifying concurrent issues and monitoring patient outcomes. Quality trauma care is a team effort.
What are some moments of positivity you've witnessed over the past couple of months?
Health care providers are concerned with promoting the best possible outcomes for patients. We are truly coming together to support each other now, while patient care is more challenging than we have ever experienced. Our critical care nurses are using new care delivery models creatively. At times, it takes five nurses to move one patient from back to abdomen, akin to the most complex choreography. Nurses are using iPads to help family members and physicians talk with patients. Our patients are grateful for the quality care they have received and that brings joy to the nursing and ancillary teammates.
How did your THS experience prepare you for your career? How did THS help prepare you for dealing with a crisis or dealing with the unexpected?
It is difficult to say how THS prepared me for this pandemic. While it would be easy to say that I learned critical thinking skills at THS, these patient care challenges couldn’t be anticipated. Patients with COVID-19 are more profoundly ill than most of us have ever experienced. Many of us are used to having several extremely unstable patients in a large ICU or ED at one time, but not an entire unit! Also, more than eight hours in an N95 mask with another mask over it, gowns, goggles and scrub caps are extremely hot and exhausting.
Teamwork is a skill that THS does emphasize on both the athletic field and in the classroom. I couldn’t get through a shift without a good team around me. Everyone works together to coordinate care and relieve one another when the masks become too unbearable. When a patient issue arises, a group problem solving session ensues and the issue gets resolved. THS did emphasize problem solving to understand a science experiment or a group project, and that remains a skill that is extremely relevant.
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
This virus will be with us until we have an effective vaccine. Even with a vaccine, there will still be people who get this disease as no vaccine is 100% effective. The health care system in Delaware and Southeastern Pennsylvania was able to maintain a stable workforce and bed availability so thankfully, difficult ethical decisions have not needed to be made yet. This fall and winter will be even more challenging for health care institutions because of seasonal increase in flu and pneumonia on top of COVID-19.
We all need to work together and follow CDC guidelines to decrease the next pandemic wave and ensure hospitals do not become overcrowded. So, wash your hands, wear a mask and keep your distance in order to avoid becoming a COVID-19 statistic.
