{"id":9602,"date":"2020-03-22T19:59:09","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T23:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/?p=9602"},"modified":"2020-03-24T06:28:13","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T10:28:13","slug":"quiet-hospital-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/quiet-hospital-zone\/2020\/03\/22\/","title":{"rendered":"Quiet Hospital Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Academic medical centers right now would provide visitors — if they were permitted — a strange experience.<\/p>\n

Usually buzzing with clinical and research activity, with incessant human interactions in hallways, on rounds, at the bedside, in conference rooms, our hospitals are now eerily quiet — and very, very, tense.<\/p>\n

Minus the intensive care units, the “special pathogen units” (or whatever name assigned to them), the emergency room — the rest of the place is practically silent.<\/p>\n

Elective ambulatory care has basically shut down. Same for elective surgeries.<\/p>\n

Scheduled for screening colonoscopy? Cancelled.<\/p>\n

Annual mole check with your dermatologist? Rescheduled for 3 months (at least) from now. Hernia repair? Sorry.<\/p>\n

Follow-up with your nurse practitioner about that new blood pressure medication? Virtual visit — better get that home blood pressure monitor out from the closet.<\/p>\n

The inpatient floors have, as usual, patients with acute medical and surgical problems — but discharges occur expeditiously, with signs at the hospital entrance prohibiting visitors. This is no place anyone wants to linger. The hospital census is way<\/em> down.<\/p>\n

As for conferences, they are all but done. Medical grand rounds, clinical case conferences, morbidity and mortality, resident report — all cancelled, or converted to Zoom, or Webex, or GoToMeeting, or Skype, or whatever your platform may be.<\/p>\n

The cafeteria still serves food, but there’s no self-serve anything, a tricky pivot for an enterprise that usually offers many buffet choices. Forget the salad bar. A long-term kitchen employee — Pat, she’s wonderful — wears a mask and kindly hands you your cup of soup, using plastic gloves and plenty of distancing.<\/p>\n

No groups congregate at the tables — which are pushed to the side of the room. Don’t sit here.<\/em><\/p>\n

The cashiers have a wary look on their face — please<\/em> don’t hand me cash — but to their credit, are as friendly as ever.<\/p>\n

Quiet. Hospital Zone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Academic medical centers right now would provide visitors — if they were permitted — a strange experience. Usually buzzing with clinical and research activity, with incessant human interactions in hallways, on rounds, at the bedside, in conference rooms, our hospitals are now eerily quiet — and very, very, tense. Minus the intensive care units, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[4601],"class_list":["post-9602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care","category-infectious-diseases","tag-covid-19"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}