DNP Student Fighting COVID in Boston: ‘We WILL Get Through This Together’

May 26, 2020

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.