AAP Voices Blog

This has been the most bizarre and surreal time in my over 3 decades of pediatrics! 

Everything has been flipped upside-down and inside-out: from seeing the most patients effectively that one can, to keeping everyone possible at home; from a very personal hands-on approach, to the now ubiquitous social distancing and virtual care; from being the taken-for-granted humble pediatrician, to being considered by so many as heroes! 

When the most lowly of things (toilet paper, making homemade bread, puzzles) became the greatest in demand, it all became somewhat confusing.

I don't feel like a hero at all. Actually, I feel like I am not doing enough.

I'm going to work every day and working from my personal office, instead of mingling and discussing various matters with my staff. 

By going out at all, I am keeping myself immersed in the public, even though I'm in two high-risk categories (over 65 and asthma). My spouse and son don't think I should go to work at all. 

I am "saving myself" for work, by not going anywhere else. My husband is doing all the shopping and minimal errands, not letting anyone into my house for any reason, waiting to get the badly needed haircut, etc.

Information, recommendations and requirements are all changing daily. It's overwhelming at times, yet not in the way those at the front lines are experiencing — those who are in ICUs, intubating and holding the hands of those who are dying alone.

I'm trying to make sense of something so poorly understood that we in medicine are making decisions based on partial information that is likely to change tomorrow. 

I'm a scientist, so that is not normal thinking for me. I'm trying to get my nursing and administrative staff to wear masks and social distance. Nothing about any of this feels heroic. Yet we are on the receiving end of so much gratitude, prayers and thoughtful treats, that I am humbled beyond words.

We will come out of this changed, but in what ways we do not yet know. We don’t know what our office practices will look like in future months and years.

I believe that like "9-11," 2020 will have its own special meaning and name that will write history and define aspects of our future.

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*The views expressed in this article are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the American Academy of Pediatrics.