Dr. J. Craig Venter

#RealTalkWednesday #BlackinMarineScience Today I am a Prof. at UCSD. 20 yrs ago I was a teen girl living in Bamako/Mali with no running water or electricity. A french woman doing PhD in the Netherlands spent a few days at my place. Back then, I was obsessing over @JCVenter (1/4)

I run through the meds and plan with the nurse and RT. I pause. I see the SS tattoo and think about what he might think about having Jewish physician taking care of him now, or how much he would have cared about my life if the roles were reversed. 16/

As I stepped out of the room to gear up for a high risk procedure and grab equipment, I checked my PPE. I had my N95, face shield, gown, gloves. Was I safe? Was my team safe? I pause to check and make sure I had all my equipment and backups if needed. 14/

... and every single time I’ve been able to smoothly and quickly move though those emotions to do so. “They came here needing a doctor, and dammit Taylor, you’re a doctor” is a mantra I’ve repeated to myself when I feel like my empathic core wanes. 13/

I’ve faced these situations countless times since medical school. Not the intubation - which is routine at this point for me and my team. The swastikas. The racist patients. Every single time I feel a bit shaken, but I went into this job wanting to save lives... 12/

He said that if a breathing tube was the only way he could survive, he wanted us to do everything we could. So we would. We were out of other options by this point, so we prepared. 11/

He was already on high respiratory support and still working hard to breathe so I asked him about his code status and if he would want to be intubated, knowing that was all but inevitable and before the hypoxia made him more confused and unable to answer. 10/

Instead, they’ve called the pandemic a hoax, called us liars and corrupt, told us we are being too political by worrying about patients dying and trying to save lives. They’ve stopped caring about our lives, our families, our fears, worried only about their own. 9/

Unfortunately, society has proven unwilling to listen to the science or to our pleas. Begging for people to take this seriously, to stay home, wear a mask, to be the break in the chain of transmission. 8/

And isolation because we don’t want to be responsible for spreading the virus, knowing that we are surrounded by it on a daily basis. Isolation because no one else can truly understand this feeling, these fears, the toll of this work. But we soldier on. 7/

We exist in cycle of fear and isolation. Fear of getting sick on the front lines. Fear of bringing a virus home and exposing our families. Fear of the developing surge of patients. Fear of losing our colleagues. Fear of not having what we need to take care of patients. 6/