February, 2020. As Covid-19 wrapped around the globe, I knew the world would change day to day, as would my work as an emergency medicine physician. I started keeping a journal, something I’d done only once before in my life. I wanted to capture how my knowledge, understanding and emotions were changing. How the world was shifting, and me and my workplace along with it.
As I continued to write, it became clear that the original premise was giving way to something broader and deeper. I was experiencing the pandemic on multiple levels. Professionally…as a frontline doctor and the chair of my hospital’s Covid Task Force. And personally…as a child of two Holocaust survivors and a witness to my family’s history of loss and resilience.
Then, the pandemic’s enduring theme. The unexpected. On March 23, 2020, a colleague encouraged me to make a video urging the public to shelter-in-place. Its views and shares beckoned me to wade further out into social media, a space I had barely ever explored. I started to post my journal.
Steven Zlotowski, MD
