Arthur A. Gianelli
Years from now, when I’m long retired, the word “COVID” will evoke vivid and emotional memories.
Its occurrence disrupted our collective timeline, much as the assassination of President Kennedy did for a generation past. Yet COVID-19 wasn’t a moment frozen forever in time. It has lingered with us, unwanted and lethal, reminding us always of the fragility of life and that a return to our pre-COVID existence will never be fully possible.
Too much has happened. Too many people have died. Too many lives have been altered. Too much water has flowed under this terrible bridge.
I remember a lot. I recall the early days, when the hospital presidents would meet and review our grim statistics: how many patients died, how many were placed on ventilators, how full were our morgues. You sometimes forgot—or you had to forget—that there were people behind the numbers. I have flashbacks to the day we limited many of our inpatient units to serve only COVID-19 patients. We knew so little about the virus that seemed to be lurking everywhere.
We didn’t know its transmissibility or whether our intrepid front-line staff would succumb to its clutches. I participated in a huddle on one of our COVID-19 units, and I recall just how young the care teams were. “Is this what it feels like to send soldiers into battle,” I thought. I was scared for them, but so intensely proud at the same time. I had a job to do. It was important. Theirs was important and courageous.
COVID-19 has taught us that our existence is vulnerable and fleeting; that our daily routines are simple but they matter; that masks and social distancing, though essential for a long time, inhibited our longing for interconnectedness; and that those of us who worked on the front lines of care were ordinary people who met the moment with grace, purpose, and humanity.
What lies ahead? The rest of our lives—lives whose trajectories have been bent but not broken; lives that have been reshaped, repurposed, but not reduced by this disease; lives that, at long last, are moving away from grim statistics and daily uncertainty and pointing instead toward a future of hope and promise.”
Arthur A. Gianelli, Chief Transformation Officer, Mount Sinai Health System
President, Mount Sinai Morningside
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