A COVID-19 patient in New York died after amateur medical residents rushed to the front line of the outbreak and set her ventilator too high.
The patient, in her 60s, was being treated for on an overnight shift at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx last April by family medicine residents who were not properly taught how to operate the respiratory support machine.
The report of the woman's tragic death came amid news by The Wall Street Journal regarding how medical residents who were previously training to be psychiatrists, family physicians, and even dentists have been ordered to the front lines of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Residents are doctors who are medical school graduates that are specializing in a distinct field by shadowing experienced doctors for their training.
During times of emergency, such as the coronavirus pandemic, residents can be assigned in the emergency department and ICUs to meet the demand for doctors, even though the work may not be in their specialty area.
According to New York City doctors residents, novel coronavirus patients are dying while they are demanded to work on intensive care units (ICUs) with no prior training in the field.
Trainees at Elmhurst in Brooklyn remarked that patients had died after being left floundering for days because they were not designated to a team.
The family-medicine residents who cared for the woman on the overnight shift were not required to do a rotation in critical care.
When the patient's disease aggravated overnight and the said young doctors hooked her up to a ventilator, they inadvertently turned the device up too high, stopping her heart.
Other residents including those training to be ophthalmologists, dentists, and podiatrists have also been demanded to the front line because New York City's doctors are stretched direly thin.
Upon the woman's heart stopping, doctors rushed into her room and discovered the ventilator had been set too high. A doctor then questioned two residents if they knew how to control the ventilator and they answered no.
One critical care physician in charge of the patient's 36-bed unit rushed into the room when the woman's heart stopped last April.
It was reported that residents are unlikely to decline the responsibility as this could jeopardize their chances of getting employed and they lacked support from a union.
Medical residents at Montefiore Medical Center are reportedly largely being designated to patients who are 65 and older, while younger patients who have more potential to survive the coronavirus are receiving treatment from experienced doctors and nurses.
The NYC hospital referred The Journal to an outside public relations consultant when contacted for comment on the story, but they did not receive a response.
Meanwhile, at Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, anesthesiology residents were assigned to the responsibility of respiratory therapists, a licensed job that necessitates at least two years of training, after a mere Zoom session and a Google document that commanded them to call an attending physician if they needed assistance.
And at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia, one resident divulged to being afraid that admitted patients were being treated like "guinea pigs."
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