Doctors from all over Montgomery County are hard at work despite the challenges they experience from COVID-19. They face fears every day not knowing if their patients are exposing them to the coronavirus, rendering their lives at risk to complete their job and assist others. To prevent anxieties and daily dangers, all medical fields follow the Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines to maintain safety in their offices.
Many doctors are willing to follow CDC and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) mandates at all costs to ensure a safe working environment.
“I … have no issues with the current guidelines,” Dr. Brian Peyser, a dentist at Peyser Dentistry and Montgomery County resident, said.
Businesses in Montgomery County are hurting due to the fears of customers. This applies more than ever to doctors. Peyser’s biggest challenge was paying his employees at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our revenue was down almost 75% for months,” Peyser said.
According to Dr. Jerome Schwartz, an ENT at Feldman ENT Group, “We are probably at about 75% of our usual patient flow.” Schwartz believes this decrease is because patients “think that doctors’ offices are a place where they can more easily catch things like COVID-19.”
At the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, patients were only allowed to visit priority doctors. Moreover, some patients still prefer a phone or video call instead of visiting their doctor in-person.
Dr. Fred Brody, a Montgomery County resident and chief surgeon at Washington, D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center, still performs virtual appointments.
“30% to 40% of visits are via telephone or video conference,” Brody said.
Brody is responsible for the aftermath of patients’ health, such as getting them to a safe rehabilitation center and overseeing their return home safely. Brody is also concerned with patients providing a negative COVID-19 test prior to surgery.
“Now we have to worry about getting them tested before getting operated on,” Brody said.
The check-in process has also shifted to provide additional safety measures. Doctors will even instruct their patients to wait in the car if there isn’t enough space for social distancing in the waiting room.
“We will actually have patients wait in the car, and then we text them when there’s enough separation in the office to safely bring them up,” Schwartz said.
Aside from the worry and extra measures taken to prevent dangers, doctors feel confident that the environment in their offices will eventually return to feeling more normal.
Dr. Jon Sherman, a podiatrist at Kentlands Foot and Ankle, remains optimistic about working in the coronavirus pandemic.
“Going to the office and helping my patients keeps me hopeful for a brighter future,” Sherman said. “I feel the number of [COVID-19] cases is going down and the vaccines are being administered, so hopefully that will improve the numbers of new cases and deaths in the next coming months.”
According to Schwartz, doctors are “a lot more comfortable” working now that vaccine distribution has become more widespread.
Article by Madison Sherman of Quince Orchard High School
Photo courtesy of Upupa4me under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license