Beaumont ER doctor in the trenches from COVID’s start
When the COVID-19 pandemic first blew into Michigan a year ago, emergency room physicians felt a sense of helplessness in how to treat the fast-spreading deadly coronavirus. That included Dr. Chris Hutchinson at Royal Oak Beaumont.
“We were hit with that first wave. … At that point we knew nothing about what to do. We got so many people so fast and they were all the same presentation,’’ Hutchinson said.
“It was something I’d never experienced — I’ve been in medicine for two decades and never had anything like this where basically one person after another. They had the same script — I got sick about 10 days ago, now I’m feeling worse. There was very little variability in the presentation. It was the same thing. It was this relentless, monotonous (wave). It was awful. You heard them telling the story — here’s another one. It took you five seconds — yep there’s another one.’’
It was the same patient over and over again. Not at all how emergency rooms typically operate.
“What added to that, you felt helpless. We had nothing to do other than give them oxygen if they needed to be on a ventilator. We didn’t do anything else. There was nothing else to do for them at that point,’’ said Hutchinson, an all-American defensive tackle at the University of Michigan in 1992.
He said it took a while for the science to come out and see what was actually working. The challenging part early on was deciding what could be the best approach. Fluids or no fluids. Antibiotics or no antibiotics. Intubation early or late.
“Pretty much every day before work we’d have an ER meeting on Zoom and they’d say here’s what we’re doing today — and it might be completely opposite of what you did yesterday,’’ Hutchinson said.
It was scary how quickly things changed. Another complicating factor was the shortage of tests early on. In the first weeks, only the state of Michigan provided COVID tests and they were limited.
“You had to fill out six pieces of paper and FAX stuff and call somebody and it was extremely onerous,’’ Hutchinson said.
“I can remember a 78-yearold lady who stood up in her bed and said to me, ‘I want a test.’ And I was like, ‘Ma’am I can’t give you a test you’re not sick enough.’
“Early on it was only if they’re really sick. If they’re going to be discharged you can’t be tested. This old lady she pretty much got in my grill and said, ‘I want a test and you said you’re not going to test me.’ I said, ‘Ma’am I can’t. It’s not a Beaumont thing. We have to reserve the tests for the sickest people to make sure we’re treating them appropriately.’’
Now they have three different tests depending on the criteria. At Beaumont the second wave was not as bad as the first last spring. Now numbers continue to drop.
The vaccine has brought hope to many including Hutchinson.
“Even though medications and steroids provide a very small benefit, to me as an emergency physician it wasn’t like these were gamechangers — steroids help some absolutely. Ventilation techniques help some of the time,’’ Hutchinson said.
“All of these different things we did — it was nothing like a 95% efficacious vaccine. That was something significant, it was the first time in all of this you felt like I can look down the road and see this thing coming to an end,’’ Hutchinson said. “You actually felt that happen. Other times it was like we’re doing the best we can and now it’s like we’ve done something and it’s going to work.’’
Away from Beaumont, Hutchinson and his family have taken another hit as coowners of Pepino’s in Sylvan Lake. The well-established restaurant was started by his wife’s grandfather in Walled Lake 37 years ago.
“That’s been another chapter of this that’s been awful. We were fortunate enough to get some payroll protection loans but that process was such an enormous unknown and we finally got our first loan that had been forgiven,’’ Hutchinson said. “We have employees that have worked for us for 30 years.”
His mother-in-law, brother-in-law and aunt-inlaw work at Pepino’s.
“We had a scare, one of our employees had a scare. We had to close down — you’re barely making ends meet and now you’ve got to close down for 14 days. It’s been rough,’’ Hutchinson said.
“It’s such a hard business to begin with and how aggressive our state has been about closing things down. It’s been hard, I’m hopeful that we’re out of it, it’s still rough,’’ he said.
“We’re so focused on locking everything down, then just like the adage says there’s always unintended consequences — the suicides, the overdoses, all of these things that happen. We’re still seeing people come to ER that say it’s the first time out of the house,’’ Hutchinson said.
The vaccine is slowly changing the outlook.
“Early on you couldn’t even look to the end, because things were happening so fast it didn’t seem even right to say, ‘Boy, I wonder when this is going to end.’ It was like I wonder what today is going to hold for us,’’ Hutchinson said. “You couldn’t look beyond today.’’