The Lyfe Magazine recognizes the struggle many of us are facing during this time. We Would like to take a moment each week to recognize someone who is working and helping others during this stressful period.
Each week we want to honor someone, to let everyone know there are genuine heroes in the world!
This week we honor Tamischer B. Nettles!
What’s your occupation?
I am a family medicine physician, and I have been practicing medicine since 2005.
What has been the biggest challenge so far?
The biggest challenge that we face as medical professionals are being able to keep up with the pace of the virus itself, and recognize it in enough time to keep more people from getting sick. The virus is constantly changing. For example, when the virus first arrived it behaved one way and we thought it will only affect certain people. As we began to see more patients and study the virus, we learned that wasn’t the case. The virus started to change and behave in another way, which begin to affect children. We haven’t had a preview; we are reading this book all at the same time. We don’t know all the chapters in this book because they aren’t written yet. Therefore, we are reading along with everyone else. We are trying to fight it and we don’t know what to expect, because every day is different.
Do you foresee anything good coming from all of this?
Hopefully, some measure of personal hygiene and prevention of transmission of infection just in our daily lives. Improved hand washing hygiene, improved infection transmission on a regular basis, we should all be washing our hands all the time, we should all be keeping our respiratory droplets to ourselves.
Do you think life will go back to normal or have things changed forever?
I think life has been changed forever. Until we can possibly eradicate this virus similar to the levels of eradication like the MMR viruses and other deadly viruses, we are going to be changed forever because of the transmit ability of COVID 19. COVID 19 is so pervasive that if you don’t stay away from each other you can contract it, just by speaking.
We don’t know why it is presenting itself in different ways. We have seen patients that have rashes, fevers and cardiac arrest. We thought kids couldn’t contract it, but they can also be asymptomatic and not show that they have the virus. We didn’t know more until more cases came in then we realized that the symptoms were related to the virus. Since the virus is constantly changing, we will have to adjust to a new normal for a while.
Do you think the lock down is working, why or why not?
I do believe that the lock down is working because the pace of transmission has slowed down. It is working as far as what people are actually adhering to. Helping to slow down the spread of the virus by staying home helps the health community keep up with the most acutely ill patients.
A lockdown is only a lockdown until the numbers go down. If you let the lockdown go and the numbers aren’t all the way down then we end up right back where we started.
What advice would you give people during this time?
I would tell people to cherish their family and friends and have enough respect and love for them to be safe and not put them in a situation where they can get sick. Many family and friends have preexisting health issues, and by staying home prevents the virus to spread to our loved ones. Have faith in what God’s doing. He is showing us who’s actually in control. Listen to the evidence. We have had pandemics before and they have been under control. Ebola was much more deadly and it was controlled because there were things in place. We can get through this if we listen, pay attention and have respect for each other. Wear your mask, don’t put anyone in a situation where you are not respecting them and keeping them safe by thinking you are fine. Anything that you can put off, or postpone do it. Be safe, it is not worth your life or someone else’s life because you don’t want to be on lock down any more. Every life matters.