Apr 20, 2020
Heroes on the front line: Virginia Caples
A new Coverage series features the voices of doctors and nurses battling the coronavirus in Massachusetts
Around the world, health care providers are on the front line of the battle against the coronavirus.
Many are struggling not only to treat a disease with no known treatment, one to which no human has natural immunity. They are also facing an unprecedented global shortage of the masks, gowns and gloves known as personal protective equipment, due to international manufacturing shortfalls in the face of the pandemic. That equipment is essential to preventing health care workers from getting infected themselves and from passing the virus to patients and to their own family members.
Doctors and nurses and physician assistants and other health care workers sign up to work long hours, nights and weeks, away from their families. But never in our lifetime have they been asked to put their own health and their loved ones’ health at such risk.
At Coverage, we are giving Massachusetts doctors, nurses, PAs and NPs a chance to speak to you, our readers, in their own words. We asked that they share their simplest, most urgent messages as they fight this new virus with no vaccine and no cure, a virus vulnerable only to our common human bravery, ingenuity and compassion.
What inspires me is the team approach to every single situation. The staff here works hard, they work around the clock. They know every patient is different, yet every member of the team comes together to take care of each patient to keep them safe, keep them alive and get them back home. That’s the outcome we all want to see. It’s no different from what we do every day. But it’s not just the nurses and doctors who are part of that team . The people who help us do our job — the people who clean for us, the pharmacy, the radiologists and others are all a part of it. It’s a well-rounded approach because if we’re not helped, we can’t get our job done.
- Virginia Caples,
an infection prevention nurse with Cambridge Health Alliance
More in the "Heroes on the front line" series:
Dr. Harry Schrager
Infectious disease physician,
Newton-Wellesley Hospital
Sean Sullivan
ER nurse manager,
Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital
Dr. Jessica Isom
Psychiatrist,
Codman Square Health Center
Dr. Kavita Babu
Dept. of Emergency Medicine, UMass Memorial
Dr. Adam Lurie
Newton-Wellesley Hospital
Dr. Lakshman Swamy
Physician in the ICU,
Boston Medical Center