Jacobi Hospital nurse tells her
story of fi ghting COVID-19 and
BY JASON COHEN
anti-Asian hate
A nurse in the emergency
room at Jacobi Hospital for only
two years, Karen Lam barely had
her feet wet when the pandemic
arrived. But as the crisis set in,
she faced a sink-or-swim moment
— and she dove in headfi rst.
Lam, 27, of Bayside, Queens,
originally wasn’t sure what she
wanted to pursue as a career.
During her junior year at Stony
Brook University, she volunteered
as an EMT — and soon
her passion for the medical fi eld
was born.
She attended nursing school
at St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn
and, since graduating a few
years ago, Jacobi has been her
fi rst and only job in the fi eld.
“I’ve very much felt like a
baby nurse navigating her way
through the pandemic,” she
stated.
Lam was hired as an ER nurse
at Jacobi in January 2019. While
she had a year under her belt before
COVID-19 came, a lot of her
success has come due to the help
of nurse Kelly Cabrera, who was
her preceptor.
Cabrera showed her what to
do during a code, how to do an
I.V., but really “it was trial by
fi re,” she said.
“You just get thrown in and
you have to learn quickly because
your patients are depending
on you,” she explained. “It
was a very steep learning curve,
but I had people to lean on.”
However, when the coronavirus
came it was like nothing she
could have ever imagined. Death
was everywhere, colleagues and
family members got COVID-19
and there was a shortage on
PPE.
“At some point, you have to
become numb,” Lam said. “The
time you take to cry is the time
you can spend at another patient’s
bed side. You can cry when
you get home.”
For the fi rst six months of the
pandemic she lived with her parents,
but rarely saw them as she
had to isolate and eat her meals
alone.
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Lam told the Bronx Times
she reached her breaking point
in mid-April 2020. There was one
day where she hadn’t eaten all
day or used the bathroom.
After taking a bite of a sandwich
for 30 seconds, Lam returned
and found one of her patients
was coding — going into
cardiopulmonary arrest. She
blamed herself.
“I just felt super guilty,” she
recalled. “There were just so
many sick patients and so few of
us.”
Lam also discussed the recent
Asian hate that has taken
place throughout NYC and country.
While hasn’t experienced
any type of attack or racism, she
is disgusted with what she reads
about.
It upsets her when she hears
people call it the “Chinese virus.”
“It’s heartbreaking to know
that people look at me and see
a threat,” she said. “When people
are using language like that
you’re putting a target on me.”
Jacobi Hospital nurse Karen Lam