Point of You - Medical Mayhem

Sofia Mang, Marcus Kim

In this episode, staffer Sofia Mang discusses the effect of COVID on the medical community's work and personal lives. Listen as she sits down with Northview student Srihari Siruvella, and Dr. Jacqueline Kim to hear their personal experiences through the pandemic. Listen on Spotify or Apple Music. 

Sofia Mang: Hello and welcome to Point of View where we give students a place to listen, learn and lean in. I'm your host Sofia Mang, and in today's segment of Point of You, we will be talking about the impact of COVID on health workers, families and workplaces. We spoke with some health care professionals and relatives of frontline workers for their insight. Okay, so first, just introduce yourself.

Jacqueline Kim: My name is Jacqueline, I am a fourth year Doctor of Audiology, clinical audiology, student. Right now I am completing my year long externship at the Atlanta VA Medical Center. And what I'm doing is just getting all of the experience necessary to be a clinical doctor prior to graduation. Things that I do include diagnosing hearing loss and balance disorders, working with cochlear implant patients, I do hearing aid stuff and, and yeah.

Sofia: So you basically just explained what you do, what drew you to your occupation?

Jacqueline: So it's a very long and convoluted story, the best way to boil it down is, I thought I wanted to be a doctor. Organic chemistry told me "you don't want to be a doctor", and I agreed, because I hate chemistry with a burning passion. So I still wanted to stay within the medical field, I still wanted to be able to help people. I just decided I'd rather be like a diet doctor or a doctor lite or something, not an actual medical doctor. So I kind of combined my love for language and communication, because I was a English major in undergrad as well as a linguistics major. So I combined my passion for that communication aspect into the medical field as well. And thus I found audiology. I think it's great just because you're able to help people hear, which sounds important. But at the end of the day, it's all about communication and staying in contact with their community and knowing what's happening around them, a nd being able to share those little moments with family members or in public, being involved at the dinner table, being involved with family gatherings or even being able to understand what the grocery store cashier is saying. I think people forget a lot, how important being able to hear is.

Sofia: What kind of impact has COVID had on your workplace and what changes have you seen due to it?

Jacqueline: Alrighty. So COVID has had a very big impact not only on the workplace, but on my schooling. When it hit during my gosh, second year, I want to say. And because of that I wasn't able to get as much clinical experience as previous non COVID students. One thing that I did see is, there was a big change in how, well first off, PPE. So the wearing of masks, the wearing of face shields, all of that has had a huge impact because we are dealing mostly with patients with hearing loss. So you take away their ability to see facial cues, I'm sure you too have both experienced it as well. Even though you have normal hearing, I'm assuming the moment you cover someone's face, it's a lot more difficult to understand. So combine that with hearing loss, and suddenly I'm yelling at my patients. So that's that's one aspect, it's impacted my ability to communicate with my patients, it's also impacted time a little bit. Infection control is something that all of the clinics I've been to and I've seen have taken very seriously. So one thing that happens is, now between every patient, you've got to wipe down all surfaces, you've got to sterilize everything, which ideally when you think about it, maybe we should have done pre COVID as well. But, now we're having to take extra time to do that. I know at the Atlanta VA we're also, we've also changed the way that we circulate people through the clinic. We've seen people have or now we have people walking in only one direction, which kind of makes traffic a little bit weird and convoluted but that's okay. So it's just a little bit of impact on clinic time in the medical field. Every minute counts. The appointment times haven't changed, but the amount that we're expected to do has increased. I will say one of the best impacts COVID has had and this might sound kind of crazy, but COVID has had a positive impact on telehealth, so your ability to provide care remotely via video calls or telephone calls that's been expanded a lot which is great. So with hearing aids, one of the things that we can now do, which we weren't able to do before, is we can remotely program hearing aids, if we're on a video call with the patient, and the patient says, well, like, it sounds too tinny, or it's a little too high pitched, squeaky and it hurts my head. Ideally, yes, we'd have them in the clinic, and we'd run some measurements. But now we can say, okay, hop into that hearing aid app, connect to remote, you know, remote support. I'll hop online on my end, and let me know what you think about this quick change. That's given us the ability to help patients with small things, which has been nice, because a lot of our veterans travel from really, really far away, I have some veterans that will say, Oh, I drove five hours to be here today. So if they drive home, and they're not happy with something, it's not as huge of a deal. Another kind of great thing is, well, I don't know if great is actually the right word to describe it. But another positive aspect, I'd say, of COVID is accessibility for people with disabilities. It's one thing that COVID has done is it's kind of brought an additional realization to society, like, hey, not everyone can navigate things easily. Not everyone has, is physically able to access certain locations, what can we do to make it easier for them. One thing that we're now doing, which we didn't do before at the Atlanta VA is we are able to take measurements of the acoustics of your ear canal, and how sound travels through your ear canal to your eardrum, and we're able to remotely or rather simulate measurements using those acoustics of the recorded to make adjustments to hearing aids that way they're most ideally fit. And then we can mail those hearing aids to the veterans. So they don't need to come in in person, which is again, really great. A lot of our veterans are wheelchair bound. A lot of our veterans live in rural remote areas. So they come in for their hearing test, because you can't do that remotely. And then you say, all right, assuming we get all these measurements, chances are we can do everything on our end, ship it to you and you are good to go.

Sofia: Wow, okay, those are some positive changes instead of all the negative. Has your opinion about your occupation changed after all of these changes, negative or positive?

Jacqueline: So one thing that is frequently said about the audiology field is that it's a dying profession. However, that's typically said by people who are very stuck in their ways and what they're accustomed to, often say that the field of audiology is dying because it's changing rapidly. There's been legislation passed that allows for over the counter hearing aids, which a lot of people, a lot of audiologists are worried about, but I only see as a positive. My opinion has changed. In some ways for the positive I see how how all the field of audiology has adjusted and adapted and how dynamic it's become.

Sofia: Okay, and has your passion for helping people been dampened from the constant burnout felt in the medical field during this time? Jacqueline Kim Yes and no. So, I still love going into clinic. I still love helping veterans. I will say, we are years into this pandemic. And I am tired of all the measurements that needs to be taken to protect people who don't want to protect themselves or protect others. It's not necessarily burnout because of how demanding my job is. It's more burnout overall COVID burnout, it's, it's just tiring seeing all of these people who are COVID deniers. And I'm like, wow, like, yes, I'm gonna help you. But gee whiz, can't you help yourself a little bit. But that's more in, that's more in general. That's got more to do with my personal point of view than necessarily the medical field. If I'm being honest. Medical field wise, I'm still young, I'm fresh, I'm shiny, I'm not even fully graduated. I have not had time to get jaded regarding audiology quite yet. Sofia Mang Good. And because you deal with these older veterans and older people, how seriously do you think the older generation takes pandemic compared to people around your age or our age or millennials? Jacqueline Kim So because I deal with older veterans in the south east, a lot of the people I see, like I said previously, are rural, are white conservatives. So a lot of them are COVID deniers. Yay. That said, I also have a lot of great older veterans who walk in and they just radiate this liberal, like liberal energy. They're like, Yeah, I got my booster. I can't wait for my next booster. I think all these, I'm so happy that you all enforce masks. It's not necessarily so much an age thing as a politics thing, which absolutely sucks, because I don't think science should be political. Mm hmm. So I mean, age, in my opinion, is not an excuse. But age also does kind of factor in because there are generational differences. Yeah, so a little bit of both. I think some of it has to do with generation. But then a lot of it also has to do with education and access to I mean, multicultural and diverse areas, and all sorts of different things. Sofia Mang Yes, I also agree and the last question, so this recent surge of cases, obviously, with Omicron is affected a lot of people has that affected the holidays for you at all, or any plans that you had? Um, did you have to change them? And do you think it's similar to last year surge, worse, better? Did it affect your workplace more? Jacqueline Kim So, right before Omicron, and Delta, we were can, there was whispers through the grapevine, like, oh my gosh, maybe we won't have to wear visors as well as masks. Maybe we'll just get to wear masks because the visors are a little bit annoying, but I understand why we have to wear them because, safety. So I mean, as far as workplace goes, or the thought of relaxing PPE requirements has, well, been completely discarded. I've definitely seen it impact holiday plans I had plans to do a "everyone's boosted, let's get together and have a hangout" with friends, a lot of friends in the Pacific Northwest. And we had to cancel that because we were like, hey, if someone comes in from a hotspot and doesn't realize that they've brought something with them, what if we become a spreading event? And it's, I'd say it's different from last year surge. Well, partially because I'm seeing people who are impossibly careful still getting sick, even though they wear masks. And I feel like part of that could also be we have a little bit of I guess, I mean, there's a knowledge like hey, I'm vaxxed, I'm boostered. I feel okay going out. I know a lot of people have shifted how how much they are willing to quarantine based on their vaccination status, which makes sense. That said, with Omicron I'm also seeing a lot of the same people who were super big into quarantine, again, being like, hey, I'm locking down. I'm going to have my core groups of people. My plans have kind of shifted around a little bit because of Omicron. Like I said, I'm not doing big giant friend get-togethers. Some of my extracurriculars, I've stopped doing because I don't want to risk getting sick. Yeah, so like, I'm not going to the gym. I'm not going to do aerial classes. And, and yeah, just kind of going back into, back into a small version of lockdown. So that is it. Okay. Thank you so much. Srihari Siruvella Hi, my name is Srihari Siruvella. Sofia Mang So Srihari, what do your parents do? Like what kind of doctors are they? What is their field of work? Srihari Siruvella Well my mom is a family physician that mainly focuses on geriatrics, which is elderly people I guess, like between the ages of 50 and 90. My dad's not in medicine. Sofia Mang Are you also interested in the field of medicine? Srihari Siruvella Since I was, I guess, since me and my brother, since a young age my mom has kind of pushed us towards medicine as our future career. We've always gone to volunteering and like other, we always volunteered at hospitals and clinics in, in her, like, in her own clinic's area, because she has like connections with I guess the doctors in that area. And anytime we just like need volunteer hours she'd always say Oh, can you help out? Like my son, he wants to volunteer at your clinic, they'd say yes, then we go. Easy. Sofia Mang And has your parent's experience during the pandemic change how you feel about health professionals and kind of your future line of work if you want to be a doctor as well? Srihari Siruvella During quarantine itself, my mom, well, and other people in the area noticed that a lot of workers wouldn't, a lot of like nurses and technicians, wouldn't come, like, they'd quit their jobs because of the quarantine. And there was unemployment benefits that were coming out. So, I guess it showed us that work is kind of valuable, labor is kind of valuable. She upped the pay because no one would come. And then on top of that, me and my brother worked at, not work, but like, semi-worked, semi-shadowed at Piedmont Regional, which is a hospital near her clinic. And we did that for like, I think we both docked around 250 hours, just shadowing surgeons and all that. And we noticed during quarantine, they had a lot different, like we went before quarantine once and after quarantine. There was a very big difference in their like standards and their regulations, I guess. Well, doctors had to keep a more higher standard of like, sanitation, there was always temperature checks. And I one point they even had like rapid COVID tests for anyone with a temperature of like two degrees off, one and a half degrees off. It's kind of impacted all of medicine in the sense that all doctors know what it's like now to -- also my parents both acknowledge this, also other doctors do, doctors have a little bit of an ego. As in, they think that their workers, their like nurses and everyone else is not at the same level as them, which is somewhat okay, because they did go through eight years of education to get there. But I feel that this has like humbled them to the experience that they are also needed. Nurses are also needed, and other people are also needed for medicine to work. Sofia Mang Besides what you just told me, do you think there's any kind of other impact that COVID has had on the workplace like how much doctors have had to work because of this unemployment? Srihari Siruvella Doctors have to work overtime. They, like if a normal shift was eight to ten hours now it's 12 to 14, and not just in like the workspace itself. Also at home, you have to like chart things, like dictate everything. It's, I guess the workload has just gone up because more people are coming to clinics to get checked up any like small sign of anything. Do I have COVID? Do I have any symptoms of COVID? Everything leads to let me get a checkup. Sofia Mang And because of this recent surge of cases that was around in winter time, did that affect your winter breaks it all? Did your mom get more careful, did you not, were you not allowed to go to holiday parties and stuff like that? Srihari Siruvella Definitely, especially last year, 2021, no one was going out. This year, I did see a lot of people start going out, which was a bad idea because everyone got hit with Omicron. So I don't know if that was a good idea. But we personally didn't go out because we knew like cases were rising because she has like, like how we, like normal people I guess, hear about it, like a week after. My mom sees it as it happens, like cases rising in her like, I guess doctor community. Everyone's spreading around like, Oh, our cases rise, by like 30 people a day. Oh, there was 100 people yesterday, like that kind of thing. So we heard about it as soon as it happened. So we didn't go out during any breaks any holidays. Yeah. Sofia Mang Yeah. And how do you think your mom's habits or attitude has changed after COVID? Srihari Siruvella Humbled. That's one thing, and in previous years, she's not very good at, she wasn't very good at management, like office management, I guess, because um, my dad would actually take care of most of that. But this year, my dad also had like, a hard time with his job. So my mom, because all the people were like leaving. She I guess learned how to manage her business more effectively. Or like she learned how to treat patients like a nurse who treat patients, not a doctor, because there is a clear difference. If you ever notice in a clinic, the doctor just comes in, does their thing, leaves, while the nurse is the one that usually treats with more like, treats them as a human being, I guess they treat with more emotion, they treat like, they treat them like a human. And while the doctor will just come in and do what they got to do, they won't really talk. When they do talk, and you can tell it's a scripted speech. So, yeah, I guess my mom learned to be more human around patients. Sofia Mang Has this impacted family and daily life in any way? Srihari Siruvella For sure. Now, well, it's a plus for me because my mom would come home even later from home, later from work, but I guess that's a bad thing, because more work usually means that more stress, I guess. So the house is, house whenever like COVID cases rose, there is a very stressful environment at home. Sofia Mang And what extra precautions have you taken with your family? And because of this, do you feel like you've been better protected and well informed during this pandemic compared to your peers? Srihari Siruvella I think this goes without saying if you live in a medical family, you're definitely more protected than other families. Um, when the first vaccine came out, we got it. Like my mom, because she works with geriatrics. So she was like one of the doctors that were given the vaccines first, very first. So, my mom, my dad, got the vaccine very, like one of the first maybe like 1000 people that got the vaccine. Then we got like the first, I guess 16 plus vaccine. my brother got the first 17 plus. I think at the time it was 17. But then I got the first 16 plus. Other things would be that in our house, we have a higher like, we keep ourselves more clean, I guess, it's not like dirty. We always have medical supplies in our house, like, at times. I didn't even know. We have like surgery equipment in our house. I don't even know where this came from. We just have it in a cabinet. We have everything you need, honestly. We have most prescription drugs. I don't know why, my mom just keeps it there just like in case something happens. Yes, I feel that we, just because most medical families will, without saying, be more prepared for anything. Sofia Mang And do you think that your parents have become more strict or create more rules about going out and stuff like that? Because of the pandemic? Srihari Siruvella Yes and no. As in, yes, because when COVID cases hit, we, you know, quarantine. Like we keep ourselves inside, don't go out kind of thing. Not quarantine, but like pre-quarantine. But when, there was a period of time where we didn't like keep that standard very high. I don't remember when it was, but like sometime last year, where COVID cases were low. We had all both, like everyone in our house had been double vaccinated, like boosted. We went out to like the mall. Like we would go out to like, places with like, we'd go hiking with friends. One time that entire hiking group actually had COVID. One person had COVID, everyone got COVID, except us. Sofia Mang And did you know? Srihari Siruvella And we didn't know, but like them, they didn't have the second booster yet. We had the second booster. So we were like protected, they were not protected. So they all got COVID which is scary. Because one day they all said, Oh, we have a fever of 104. Boom. And on top of that most of those people in that group are older. So it was a very, very big shock. Sofia Mang And I take it you've never gotten COVID? Srihari Siruvella Funny story, I think, we all think at least, in the first like, February or March or April, we all got like 103 fevers. The very first April, because my mom works there, so she must have gotten it, then we must have gotten it. So that's what we think because we all got like 103 fevers we got like, lack of taste, fatigue, bones aching, all like the symptoms of COVID. So it was like, it's a very interesting experience to see that like, yeah, we got COVID at the very beginning of COVID. Sofia Mang Yeah, I mean, at least you didn't get it like during winter. I feel like everyone has gotten it at once during the winter. Srihari Siruvella Maybe? We don't know because like the symptoms we got over, everyone got like a thing over winter, but we got like, very, very subtle symptoms. Like it was like nothing. It was like a cough for a day. So my mom got that, my dad got like, what, he was just tired. That's it. Sofia Mang Okay, thank you for speaking with us today Srihari. Srihari Siruvella Thank you for letting me on Sofia Sofia Mang This concludes this episode of point of view. Thank you so much for listening. For a transcript of this episode, head to the Point of View tab on our website, nhsmessenger.org, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at NHS Point of View for updates and new episodes. I'm your host, Sofia, and this has been Point of You.