Over a year has passed since the coronavirus spread into the region, changing everything from PPE usage to visitor policies seemingly overnight. The latest installment of Pennsylvania Hospital’s Franklin-Bond Speaker Series — named for founders Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond — offered a chance for the frontline experts to share how the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted their practices and what lessons they have learned over the past year.
The virtual session was moderated by Chief Medical Officer Dan Feinberg, MD, and brought together Michael N. Braffman, MD, chair of Medicine, Kevin M. Baumlin, MD, chair of Emergency Medicine, Paul Kinniry, MD, medical director of the ICU, Jourdan Triebwasser, MD, MA, an assistant professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Chief Nursing Officer Elizabeth Craig, DNP, RN, FACHE. Each panelist explained their teams’ challenges and successes, offered projections on how things might continue to change as we better understand the virus, and answered audience questions.
Stacey C. Peeples, MA, curator and lead archivist of the hospital’s historic collections, also noted that while COVID is the first pandemic we have experienced, PAH has weathered several since its opening. In a brief history lesson, Peeples offered insight into PAH’s response to the smallpox outbreaks of the 18th century, the yellow fever epidemics throughout the 1790s, the arrival of cholera in 1832, and the 1918 influenza pandemic.
“We don’t always consider what happens in our lifetime as historic, but we have truly lived through some very important things over the past several generations, from HIV/AIDS in the late 20th century, to COVID-19 now,” she said.