Carlie Martinez ’22 DNP is an internal medicine/urgent care nurse practitioner at Boston Medical Center and is an instructor at Boston University School of Medicine. She is also a recipient of the prestigious Yale School of Nursing Gruber Nursing Fellowship.
This is part of an occasional series of YSN community members sharing their COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) experiences.
YSN: How is COVID-19 affecting your daily work right now?
Working in a city that has the third-highest number of cases in the US has required a high degree of adaptability and resilience. My daily routine has switched from face-to-face patient encounters for urgent care, to now staffing a COVID-19 testing clinic outside of our hospital’s emergency department. When I’m not donning full personal protective equipment (PPE) or assessing and testing patients for COVID-19, I am providing remote telemedicine visits for our primary care patients.
YSN: What is your quarantine experience?
When I‘m not working, I have been trying to practice gratitude and good self-care.
Humans are social creatures by nature, and social isolation can take an emotional toll. Gardening, trying new recipes, and snuggling with my French bulldog, Penelope, are some of the ways I have been quarantining.
YSN: If you could tell the public one thing about this pandemic, what would it be?
We WILL get through this together.”
YSN: How can people and institutions best support nurses, midwives, and other frontline healthcare providers?
Listen to public health and infectious disease experts. Follow their recommendations. There is a lot of misinformation out there.
YSN: How do you anticipate carrying your COVID-19 experience forward through the rest of your career?
COVID-19 has been a powerful reminder that many diseases disproportionately affect minority communities. In addition to evidence-based practice, we must focus on the socioeconomic factors that influence health equity if we are going to provide high-quality, safe patient care to all.