From the Little Apple to the Big Apple, a local doctor answered the call recently to help fill a need on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr. Steve Short left his practice at Inspire ENT & Pulmonology for two weeks in April to join a team of specialists at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn. From the time he arrived, Short says he saw the unthinkable.
“It was just constant code blue, people were dying left and right. The hardest part was seeing how many people died and how many died without any way to make it different. We had nothing other than life support because there aren’t any medicines out there,” he said.
Dr. Short spoke about his experiences on KMAN’s In Focus Monday. A link to that interview is listed at the bottom of the page. The opportunity, he says, came about after Short’s name was selected to volunteer by the American College of Chest Physicians after hospitals including Woodhull put out the plea to specialists across the country.
“It was hard for me to leave because I wasn’t sure if I’d get it and not come home and my family’s the same way,” he said. “Before I left I went by all my kids and grandchildren’s houses in Kansas City and I said I just wanted to see them one time before I left. They stood in the driveway and I stood on the other side and we said our goodbyes.”
Short initially volunteered for five days, but he ended up staying for two weeks. The hospital was so overwhelmed, with only 70 to 100 ventilators which were typically maxed out. Some medical equipment including catheters had to be used on more than one patient.
When he arrived, he was surprised to find he was the only pulmonary critical care doctor on staff and says for those two weeks, he worked harder than he probably has in his entire career, putting in 14 to 15 hour days from 7 a.m. to about 9 or 10 p.m. daily.
“I think I was there the time they asked me to be there because they needed their residents to take a break, because they’d been the doctors on 24/7 since it started,” he said.
With new people dying seemingly all the time, Short says prayer was a big part of his experience.
“I remember I told my wife the last time I prayed with one of my special patients, literally the whole unit came over, there were about 30 people around the bed. It was such a solemn moment. For me that’s I guess the real meaning of what I do, which has always been spiritual as well as healing,” he said.
Eventually the staffing got to a point where Short said he felt comfortable leaving the facility. But just seeing the devastation the disease causes and how it presents differently in patients was a real eye-opening experience for him.
“I had a crew of doctors, one neurosurgeon who trained in London that was my absolute best friend through this whole journey. He was a strong ally with his training especially because COVID affects the brain in such a bizarre way,” he said. “There wasn’t one person in that unit that was originally from that part (of New York).”
Short has kept a journal about his experience via Facebook, as well as a collection of drawings he drew during his time at the hospital. He returned home to Manhattan April 26 and has been quarantining at home ever since. Those photos can be found below.
