By Mallory Moench, San Francisco Chronicle, July 21, 2020
Dr. Robert Rodriguez’s anxiety rises and falls with the number of coronavirus cases and deaths.
Fear that he could get infected at his San Francisco General Hospital job, or bring the virus home, affects his sleep. He doesn’t hug his 16-year-old son as much. Other worried family members avoid interacting with him. The stress isn’t sustainable, he said.
“If day after day, you’re waking up and dealing with patients that are extremely ill, some of whom wind up in the ICU and dying, it just takes a cumulative toll on our anxiety and burnout,” said Rodriguez, a UCSF professor of emergency medicine who works in the emergency department and intensive care unit at San Francisco General. “It’s exhausting every day trying to deal with this.”
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