A doctor’s humbling journey treating long Covid: ‘The second we think we know what we are doing, we fall flat on our face’

Tue, 1 Nov 2022 11:45:32 +1100

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://www.statnews.com/2022/10/10/a-doctors-humbling-journey-treating-long-covid-the-second-we-think-we-know-what-we-are-doing-we-fall-flat-on-our-face/>

"I first met Wes Ely in 2016, when I wrote about ICU delirium and Ely’s
attempts, as a critical-care physician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center,
to urge fellow health care workers to rethink the use of heavy sedation in
ICUs. His research was an attempt to limit the crippling cognitive and physical
impairments he saw develop in many critical-care patients long after they left
the hospital, something he came to call post intensive care syndrome, or PICS.

Well, a lot’s happened since 2016. I thought of Ely’s work often as ICU care
became a mainstay of the Covid-19 pandemic and wondered about the long-term
prognosis of people who were so sickened by the virus they’d been heavily
sedated and placed on ventilators to survive. Then long Covid showed up, and
became something Ely grappled with as well.

Through a new book, op-eds, and a steady stream of TikToks, Ely has become a
leading voice on the recovery that can take place after trauma or grueling
illness and on the importance of preventing new Covid infections. As the
pandemic marches on, he’s increasingly concerned about the resulting epidemic
of chronic disease society may face. I spoke with Ely about his concerns, what
he initially got wrong about long Covid, what he finds humbling about medicine,
and, why, despite all the suffering he sees and treats, he still holds hope.
The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity."

Via Violet Blue’s Pandemic Roundup: October 13, 2022
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-73246405

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

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