Day 223: Covid Will Not Win - ZAMAN

Day 223

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty-two    Friday 23 October 2020

Covid Will Not Win:

Meet the People Powering a Hospital in Brooklyn

The Brooklyn Hospital Center, Brooklyn, New York

Dr. Kiran Zaman, Clinical Fellow

“Even when I think about it right now, it gives me goosebumps. It was a very scary, very overwhelming experience. It was a nightmare. Toward the end of the morning report almost every day there would be a rapid response or an unfortunate code blue and we would run over. And the day would just go on like this, running to these rooms finding Covid patients in extreme respiratory distress, gasping for air. Some of them made it. Unfortunately, some of them didn’t. I will never forget their faces, the things that they said right before they were at the verge of death or getting intubated. ‘Oh my God, Doctor, please make sure I live,’ or ‘Tell my wife this. I love her.’ There was a very sick young Covid patient. He was actually looking at his daughter’s pictures right before he got intubated. He told me, ‘Tell my wife I’m going to come home.’ And he was swiping his daughter’s pictures on his cell phone, he made a cross on his chest. And then he got intubated and unfortunately that same night he died. We did everything to save him, but we couldn’t. I used to watch doctor dramas or soaps on TV, see these people saving lives and wish I was like them someday. I don’t think anybody ever imagined to be in something as intense as this pandemic. This was a very humbling experience. I consider myself lucky that I was part of this hospital. I learned from each and every experience, whether it was as a human being or as a physician. When your sickest patients start improving, there’s no match for that feeling. I don’t know how to explain it in words – it’s like magic.” *From a three-page article by the same name in a national newspaper.

What can we learn from Kiran Zaman? First, it’s OK to acknowledge that sometimes life is “a very scary, overwhelming experience.” Confessing the truth is the first step to dealing with it. 

Second, life’s crises can turn us into different people depending on our choices. That Kiran has made some good choices is reflected in her seeing all this as “as very humbling experience.”

Third, she sees life as an opportunity to learn: “I learned from each and every experience.” A teachable spirit in a person is a valuable thing, something with which God can work.

Reflective question: Kiran is Sanskrit for ‘ray of light.’ Will you pray for her that she can be this for patients in the darkness of Covid? Which of her lessons for us speaks most to you? Why?  

Reflective Scripture: James 4:6 – “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.”