In the past few weeks, we’ve seen a shift in the Martinos Center’s Twitter feed. Usually teeming with tweets about the latest research, upcoming conferences and occasionally the antics of someone’s adorable dog, the feed is now, unsurprisingly, dominated by updates about COVID-19 and the medical community’s response to the pandemic.
Among these are tweets from medical professionals, often with deeply personal takes on the ongoing crisis. Harrowing, heartbreaking and always very human, the tweets show a side of the pandemic that statistics and charts could never capture. Importantly, though none of the posters would agree with this characterization, they also underscore the many sacrifices medical professionals are making. In sharing the tweets, we hope to honor those sacrifices in some small way.
The tweets embedded below include updates liked and retweeted by Twitter users followed by the Martinos Center. While the original posts didn’t necessarily come from care providers at MGH, any one of them could have.
Last night I certified far more deaths than I can ever remember doing in a single shift. The little things hit you: a book with a bookmark in, a watch still ticking, an unread text message from family. Pandemic medicine is hard.
— George Hulston (@medichulston) March 31, 2020
Finally home after 13 hours in the ER. Today >90% of my patients were confirmed or likely #COVID19. Many really sick, some in their 30s like me. The sirens on otherwise empty NYC streets are unending & haunting. I’m tired. But really honored to be back in the ER in the morning.
— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) March 23, 2020
I am being redeployed.
Full of mixed emotions. I want to help but scared. Scared of getting COVID and that I am NOT as good as my younger self during the AIDS crisis, 9/11, or the Boston bombing.
I know I can do this. Someone has to be on the #frontline. Let’s beat #COVID19!
— Quynh Truong (@cardioQT) April 1, 2020
In the image above: Shadi Esfahani (@ShadiEsfahani), an MGH Radiology resident, tweeted the photo in the header with the caption, “Saw this in our elevator. Heartwarming! Thank you to all the frontline workers fighting.”