Real heroes of pandemic are medicos

If you’re a parent of a certain age, you were probably extra-proud when your child announced a desire to be a physician. You were over the moon and bragged to everyone, once that child graduated.

If you’re a woman of a certain age, having had a traditional upbringing, you’d probably heard how prestigious and financially advantageous it was for a young woman to snag a doctor husband. You may have envied friends and acquaintances who married doctors while you’d have been happy to have a suitor who had a steady job. As more women became doctors, you may have even muttered to yourself how lucky their husbands were.

You may have found yourself in envy of doctors … especially if you grew up in a poor, nonwhite community in which doctors received a level of uber-respect that was unmatched.

You may have looked up to, and/or envied, nurses also. Yes, you heard how tough nurses had it and how thankless a nurse’s job could be. But then you also heard about how much money those nurses made and how there was a nursing shortage that made a nursing career all the more lucrative. If you were a part of that poor nonwhite community, nurses had just about as much respect and prestige as the docs.

You may have wished, especially if your profession wasn’t exactly the highest paying, that you were left-brained enough to be a health-care worker. The pay was good and the chances of layoffs were low. People would always need health care and hey, the Baby Boomers certainly weren’t getting any younger. Right? Riiiight.

It’s not just because you’re older, wiser and more content with your lot in life that you’re not envying health-care workers nearly as much right now. If you’re a hurting person, you’re hurting for them. If you’re a crying person, you’re crying on their behalf. If you’re a praying person, you’re most certainly praying for health-care workers.

Because you’ve seen the images of those working on the front lines as this nation battles the covid-19/ coronavirus pandemic. You’ve seen the exhausted faces. The tired eyes peering above masks that the wearer had to reuse — and re-reuse — because masks are so scarce. The hands that have little to no access to fresh gloves or hand sanitizer. The bodies clad in trash bags because there were no blue gowns to wear.

You have seen the social-media posts by health-care workers who

cried out about their exhaustion and stress from working 12-hour shifts, lacking time to have a seat, catch a breath. You’ve realized that when these workers are given the chance to catch a breath, when they do get a much-needed moment, that brief break might be marred by the fear that they, like their patients, may not come home from the hospital.

You’ve seen the story about the death of the doctor who first sounded the alarm on covid-19. You’ve seen the additional stories about the doctors and nurses who’ve contracted covid-19 themselves — and in a handful of cases, died — as they strove to care for those who have it. You’ve shaken your head in disbelief at the news reports about hospital staff who couldn’t get coronavirus tests for themselves even after co-workers died.

You may have wondered what has really been going through the heads of the new doctors and nurses whose licenses to practice are reportedly being expedited so that they can join their more experienced colleagues on the front lines of this pandemic. How many of them are thinking, “Yes, put me in there so I can help,” and how many are thinking “Yikes! Maybe I should have gone into law!”?

You may have chuckled or cheered when seeing viral videos of health-care workers singing, dancing and playing music to de-stress and keep others upbeat. You may have shared the anger and frustration of these workers when they see people out and about when they don’t need to be, acting as if nothing was wrong and putting themselves and others at risk for contracting the coronavirus.

These health-care workers are, as I’ve heard others say, as much the heroes of the coronavirus crisis as the first responders were the heroes of 9/11.

And it’s a good bet that the doctors in the trenches don’t care a fig about having prestige. It’s also a good bet that the spouses of these doctors don’t care a fig about being envied … they’re either too busy working alongside their loved ones as health-care workers themselves, or they’re wondering when they’ll see their loved ones at home again, refreshed, and, most ideally, covid-19-free. Ditto for the nurses, other health-care workers and their significant others.

They could darn sure use our words of encouragement … and our support, in whatever form they need that support to be.