Aleha Aziz, MD, MPH: The fellow on the frontlines of COVID-19
Senior Editor Angie DeRosa interviews Aleha Aziz, MD, an ob/gyn at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center in New York. Dr. Aziz was one of many fellows involved with caring for patients during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City earlier this year.
She speaks here about how different disciplines worked together to achieve optimal patient care. The hospital system mobilized its resources in many ways, including establishing a Virtual COVID Clinic. You can read more about that here.
It was shortly after the hospital diagnosed its first COVID-19 positive patient that officials realized there would be a need for a virtual clinic to monitor the high-risk population. Medical staff were being challenged and taxed in other ways, including working with different disciplines throughout the hospital.
For example, having to perform a C-section with an oncology fellow – something that would have been absurd to think about months before the pandemic – became routine as the doctors banded together to take care of patients. Columbia also formed an obstetrics intensive care unit during that period, which Dr. Aziz discusses.
She also discusses how leadership’s response and overall organization rose to meet the demands, and the expanded role of telehealth.
To read more from the fellows who were in the midst of the crisis, check out “Dispatches During COVID-19.”
These also are additional resources shared by Dr. Aziz for more reading:
Contemporary OB/GYN Senior Editor Angie DeRosa gets insight on the current state of COVID-19 from Christina Han, MD, division director of maternal-fetal medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and member of its COVID-19 task force. Han is an active member of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and discusses the issues on behalf of SMFM.
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