PBS高端访谈:邻居们的做法让医生感动（在线收听）

Sreenivasan: Back in march, as we were beginning to experience the steep rise of coronavirus cases, we spoke with Dr. Alexis Langsfeld who was just about to leave her family for several weeks to work with COVID-19 patients at a New York City hospital. NewsHour Weekend special correspondent Karla Murthy checked in with Dr. Langsfeld again. She's speaking from personal experience and does not speak on behalf of her institution.

Karla Murthy: The last time we spoke, you were dealing with a lack of personal protective equipment. What is the situation now?

Dr. Alexis Langsfeld: I know everyone has a different perspective and had a different experience on this. But you know, I'm a doctor in the emergency department and all of our doctors and nurses had really good PPE. And we all feel really lucky and really grateful that everybody put our – our safety first.

Karla Murthy: Can you describe what it's like to physically wear this protective gear and do your job? How has it affected the way you do your job?

Dr. Alexis Langsfeld: So when I'm dressed in my PPE, I'm wearing a big mask, which is extremely tight on my face. You can see now I'm wearing a like a bandage, a silicone bandage, which protects my nose because I was getting a pressure sore and it's tight all the way around your face. And then over top of that, you wear a regular surgical mask and then you have. I wear like a small pair of safety goggles which are close to my eyes and protect from any particulate getting into my eyes. And then I wear a face shield. And between all of those layers, being able to actually see somebody's space through the reflections and being able to hear their voice and be able to see their eyes. I mean, I literally now have my name written across the top of my visor and try and make sure that my I.D. is showing because people can't even tell it's me. The one other thing that's really hard for me is that the one thing that compromises my mask is if I smile too big and I'm. And I like to smile. So if I smile, I I compromise my mask and my safety. But I often see people looking at me like, what's under there? You know, it takes away a lot of the humanity of our interaction. It's so hard because I can't give them any of the visual cues of reassurance.

Karla Murthy: Now that hospitalizations are leveling off.. What are your biggest concerns right now?

Dr. Alexis Langsfeld: Now everyone's saying, oh, look, it's slowing down. It's getting better. It's getting better. But our tremendous fear is that this is not one curve up and down that we're trying to flatten, but that we're actually going to see a sine wave. And the whole point was to enable us to be able to have the facilities and the capacity within the hospital system to be able to take care of all those people along that wave without having one spike that devastates our our entire health care system. But that sine wave is just going to be a tremendous load on all the health care providers.

Karla Murthy: When we last spoke about a month ago, you were leaving your family behind to take on more shifts at the hospital. You weren't sure when you were going to see them again. Have you been able to reconnect?

Dr. Alexis Langsfeld: I have. We we had a long three week stretch. I'd never been away from them for that long. And when I arrived back, it was just an awesome, wonderful, sweet reunion. And seeing them again was just perfect. And. Then leaving again was impossible. It has been so hard in so many ways going through this pandemic, but it's also the community around me, like my neighborhood, people have been rising to such extraordinary heights, like I'm brought to tears every night at seven o'clock when people cheer and bang pots out the window, I'm going to cry just talking about it. And people have brought me, you know, chicken or or or roasted vegetables. Or people got together and they made us surgical caps. It's it's been really awesome to see how everyone's come together. So thank you to everyone who's been supporting us. It really means a lot to all of us. Yeah.

斯瑞尼瓦桑：三月份，就在我们的新冠病例开始稳步增长之时，我们当时采访了亚历克西斯医生，她当时正要离开家庭几周，在纽约一家医院和疫情病人奋战。《新闻一小时》周末节目特别记者默西再次连线了她。她从个人的角度来谈论问题，并不代表其机构的看法。

卡拉·墨西：上次咱俩聊天的时候，你正在跟踪缺少个人防护设备（PPE）的事情。现在情况怎么样了？

亚历克西斯医生：我知道每个人都有不同的看法，也有不同的经历。但如你所知，我是急诊科的医生，我们科的所有医生和护士都配置着完备的PPE。我们感觉自己很幸运，也很感恩大家把我们的安全放在第一位。

卡拉·墨西：你能描述一下穿上PPE工作的感受么？需要穿戴PPE是否会影响你的工作方式呢？

亚历克西斯医生：我穿上PPE的时候，脸上还要带着紧紧的口罩。你现在可以看到，我戴着口罩就像戴着绷带，硅制的绷带，这样可以保护我的鼻子，因为我最近得了褥疮，脸周围都是。而在此基础上，还要带上医用口罩。我还带着一副小的安全护目镜，离眼睛很精，可以保护不会有什么特殊物质进入眼部。另外我还要戴上护面罩。在这么多层级之下，要能够通过反射来看清人与人之间的距离，听到他们的声音并看到他们的眼睛。我现在会把自己的名字写在护面罩的最外面，确保大家能通过我的ID来认出我。还有一件事的难度对我而言是很大的：带着口罩就没法笑，更没法大幅度地微笑。但我本人很喜欢笑。所以如果我要笑的话，就要在口罩和安全之间做个折中。但我经常看到有人看着我的感觉就像想知道设备下是谁。戴着PPE会夺走很多人与人之间的互动。太难了，因为我没法给他们视觉上的线索。

卡拉·墨西：现在，住院病历的数量有所下降。你现在最担心的是什么呢？

亚历克西斯医生：现在大家都在说，看啊，数据下降了，情况好转了。但我们最担心的是这并不是一条有高有低而需要趋向平稳的线，而是一条正弦波。重点是让我们能够在医院系统内拥有设备和能力，能够招呼病人，不会有特殊情况摧毁整个医疗体系。但这个正弦波对所有医务工作者来说都是巨大的工作量。

卡拉·墨西：咱们一个月前聊的时候，你把家人抛诸身后，在医院承担起了轮班的工作。你当时不确定自己是否能再见到家人。你现在重新重新见到家人了吗？

亚历克西斯医生：重新见到了。已经有3周没见他们了。我从来没离开他们那么久过。我回来的回家的时候，那重聚太棒太甜蜜了。能再次见到他们真好。再次离开是不可能的。挺过疫情的过程中有很多方面都遇到了困难。社群啊、邻居啊也都支持着我。大家的觉悟都很高。我每晚7点看到人们为我们欢呼打气的时候，都忍不住落泪。每次提起就想哭。大家给我带了鸡肉、烤蔬菜什么的。还有人集合力量，给我们做医用帽。看到大家都献出一份力，真的了不起。感谢支持我们的所有人。你们的支持对我们而言意义重大。