Stories in Care Season 2
Narrative Media Partnered with Cooper University Healthcare to produce an oral history project focusing on the impact of Covid-19 on health care providers. With Stories in Care: An Oral History of Covid-19 (Season 2), our goal was to shift the focus onto the providers and explore how the experiences of the pandemic have affected their lives and their mental health.Episode 1: We do this because we believe
In the premiere episode of season 2 of Stories in Care, Dr. Nitin Puri recounts his efforts to rally the ICU staff while at the same time asking his physician parents to not come out of retirement and go back to work in the ICU.
Episode 2: Married at Bedside
In episode 2 of our oral history on Covid-19, critical care nurse Nina Gutierez looks back on a bright moment during a dark time in the ICU.
Episode 3: Starting and ending my career with pandemics
In episode 3 of our oral history on Covid-19, Dr. Phillip Dellinger reflects on a career in which he trained many members of the critical care team at Cooper, and recounts the pride he felt in seeing those trainees now rise to the challenge of battling a pandemic as attending physicians.
Episode 4: What do you say?
In episode 4 of our oral history on Covid-19, Dr. Kim Chavez and Advance Practice Nurse Eugene McEady consider the words to say when you’re the last person to speak to a patient before they’re placed on a ventilator, and potentially the last person to ever speak to them.
Episode 5: Nancy was always there
In episode 5 of our oral history on Covid-19, Dr. Puri shares his appreciation for an administrative colleague who continued to come to work throughout the pandemic as a show of solidarity.
Episode 6: Covid never existed in Animal Crossing
In episode 6 of our oral history on Covid-19, Nina shares her coping mechanism to clear her mind between shifts caring for Covid patients in the ICU.
Episode 7: I’m still processing it
In episode 7 of our oral history on Covid-19, Dr. Chavez and Advance Practice Nurse McEady talk about processing the exhaustion and grief encountered in the ICU each day and the toll it exacted on their mental health.
Episode 8: I was cut off from my family
In episode 8 of our oral history on Covid-19, Dr. Chavez and Advance Practice Nurse Eugene McEady discuss feelings of isolation that came from losing direct contact with their families during the pandemic.
Episode 9: We hustled on ECMO
In episode 9 of our oral history on Covid-19, Dr. Puri recounts the process of rapidly scaling up Cooper’s ECMO program to give critically ill patients with little hope for survival a fighting chance.
Episode 10: I got to know him as a person
In the penultimate episode of our oral history on Covid-19, Nina reflects on getting to know a colleague’s father in law while caring for him in the ICU.
Episode 11: In my 40 years I never saw anything like this
In the final episode of season 2 of our oral history on Covid-19, Dr. Dellinger considers the scope of the pandemic when compared to his experiences over a 40 year career.