“Even though there’s a terrible thing going on, I have enjoyed having this interaction with patients outside.”
Stella E. Callegari, BSN, RN, a nurse at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, has been reassigned as an outside COVID-19 screener during the pandemic. She spoke to TMC News on May 16, 2020.
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I now work outside full time. I’m one of the screeners.
Before this, I was working in physical medicine and rehabilitation on the second floor where people would come in for their spine clinic or musculoskeletal appointments, acupuncture or the chiropractor. But now, some of those appointments are considered non-essential. They’re not really emergent. So, I have shifted outside along with the other nurse from the department because the clinics aren’t running like they were before.
I had been wearing a face shield, but honestly, the plastic on it had gotten cloudy. I can’t see through it like I had been because I’ve wiped it down with alcohol so much. Now, I wear some kind of goggles. Sometimes I will just wear glasses. I always try to have something.
Now that people are wearing masks, I’m not so concerned that something is going to fly out of their mouths.
Stella E. Callegari, a nurse at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, has been reassigned as an outside COVID-19 screener during the pandemic. (Photo by Cody Duty)
When the patients come in, I’m pretty much the first person they see with these other nurses who are out there on computers. We ask them: Have they traveled outside of Texas in the past 14 days? Have they been around anyone confirmed to have COVID-19? Do they have any flu-like symptoms? Any fever, shortness of breath, sore throat, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, coughing, loss of taste or smell? Those are the recurring questions that I ask day in and day out to every person who shows up for an appointment.
We get it all. They’re either complaining of diarrhea or having some kind of cough or this or that. We have to shift them over to the COVID provider who is out there—either a doctor or PA (physician assistant)—near the building. We will walk the patient over to an area where there is a vital sign machine and hand off a report and find out what their vitals are, especially if they’re having hypoxia (deficient oxygen supply to the body) or a high fever. The provider out there will decide what to do. Sometimes, they go off to the ER where they do a rapid COVID screening.
Sometimes, they come up there and they don’t realize their appointment has been converted to a telephone appointment or by Zoom. We have to explain to them what’s going on and what we’re doing with the social distancing to help prevent people from spreading COVID. We do our best to minimize that. We make sure that the phone numbers in the computer are up to date so that when the provider calls them, they are able to reach them. Pharmacy and mental health are outside with us. Some of these patients have to go in for their methadone or for injections for schizophrenia, so they have to go upstairs to do that. If they have pharmacy refills they need, they can go directly to talk to them. Things are being handled outside and they don’t even have to go inside the building at all.
I’m at the very front where the Metro bus comes in under this overhang. There are a couple of tents. I’m not under one of those, so when it rains, that roof thing kind of leaks. We have to keep shifting our computers. Sometimes, the shade goes away and the sun is right at me, so I have to keep using the computer in a place not right under the sun. It’s interesting because I usually work in a department where there are no windows. So, when I come in, it could be one way and when I go out, it could be cold or hot. I just never know. And now I’m out there all the time. It’s been cold, hot and humid, rainy, windy—just everything.
It’s been an interesting experience also because I am working alongside nurses from the primary care clinic that I’d never met before. I feel like we’ve come together. We help each other out. Sometimes, we have patients who come for chemotherapy and radiation. They have to come on a schedule every day for those treatments, so you start to learn who they are and what they’re there for. They get used to seeing you. When they finish their treatments, we applaud them. They give us their certificates and we sign our names and put ‘God bless you.’ Even though there’s a terrible thing going on, I have enjoyed having this interaction with patients outside and being able to hear them and work with my colleagues, who are just wonderful people.
I am honored to serve our veterans.
— Stella Callegari, as told to TMC Pulse Assistant Editor Cindy George
