Hospital Hero: Coronavirus pandemic helps
launch ER department’s wellness program
Making Sense of the Census
Texting
Counts
BRONX TIMES R 4 EPORTER, MAY 15-21, 2020 BTR
Dr. Josuha Schwarzbaum
Photo courtesy of St. Barnabas Hospital
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BY ST. BARNABAS
HOSPITAL
It was the coronavirus
pandemic that
kicked the department’s
wellness and psychological
well-being program
into high gear.
Dr. Joshua Schwarzbaum,
an emergency
medicine physician, initially
came to St. Barnabas
Hospital a year and a
half ago with the intention
of starting such a
program for department
personnel that would enhance
its physical and
emotional well-being.
The program would take
certain business and
psychological principles
and bring them into the
world of emergency medicine
in order to generate
organizational change,
make staff feel valued
and respected, and teach
those working across the
healthcare spectrum —
doctors, nurses, security,
environmental services,
clerical — how to
communicate more effectively.
Acceptance of the program
progressed slowly
— until the virus hit.
“Leadership was always
on board, but it
takes time to get things
moving, to create change
and get buy in,” said Dr.
Schwarzbaum.
And it takes a lifechanging
event.
Beginning in mid-
March, when patients
with COVID-like symptoms
began to arrive
in the ER, Dr. Schwarzbaum
and Dr. Joel Warden,
an ethics consultant
and professor at Fordham
University, who
holds a doctorate in theology
and teaches such
subjects as Death and
Dying, and Moral Aspects
of Medicine and
is the Catholic scholarin
residence at St. Francis
College in Brooklyn,
have led Sunday evening
sessions for the hospital’s
ER residents and attendings.
The hour-long
sessions are virtual and
interactive.
“As doctors, we spend
so much time learning
how to practice medicine
but just as important
is focusing on breaking
down barriers of communications,
improving
interpersonal relationships,
learning to connect
with people better
and dealing better
with emotions,” said Dr.
Schwarzbaum.
The sessions are intended
to teach participants
how to cultivate
their strengths and improve
on their weaknesses.
Objectives include
giving attendees
the tools to address the
gamut of emotions encountered
while working
in the emergency
room, interacting better
with others, opening
lines of communication
and gaining understanding
of others.
“It really allows you
to see how other people
see things. This is always
important, but
even more so at a time
like this when we don’t
have a good treatment
for the disease and we
have to explain and
guide patients through
it,” said Dr. Schwarzbaum.
“We’re not only
doctors or nurses at this
time, but because we’re
the only ones here, we’re
also the patient’s family
when they’re sick and
alone.”
Like the virus itself,
the Sunday night topics
have evolved from the
pandemic’s beginnings in
mid-March (Stress, Anxiety
and Uncertainty,) to
when the St. Barnabas
emergency department
became overwhelmed by
the volume and illness of
its patients in early and
mid-April (Strategies
During COVID,) to when
the hospital fl attened the
curve in late-April (The
New Normal and How to
Transition Back.)
Dr. Schwarzbaum,
who is working towards
an MBA degree, majored
in psychology at the University
of Maryland before
attending medical
school in Israel. He tinkered
with the idea of
becoming a psychiatrist,
choosing instead to complete
a residency in emergency
medicine upon
returning to the United
States.
“During residency I
would often come home
frustrated wondering
what impact I was having
on people,” he said. “The
more I thought about it
the more I realized I can’t
change everyone around
me, I can’t necessarily
change my environment,
but I can change myself.
“In the ER, I’m working
with people from different
countries and different
cultures who don’t
necessarily think alike.
So how do you get them
to work effectively as a
team? It got me to thinking
about how to get
through to and communicate
to them in ways
that transcend cultural
boundaries.”
This has never been
more important, he said,
than at times like now.
“The coronavirus
showed us this. We need
to work as a team in
what we do for our patients.
We’re all in it together.”
By Julie Menin, Director of NYC Census
2020
In December of last year, NYC Census
2020 launched the City’s first-ever
community awards program focused on
census-related education and organizing,
the Complete Count Fund. The more
than 150 awardees serve all 245 New York
City neighborhoods in more than 80 languages.
As New Yorkers continue to shelter in
place, Complete Count Fund awardees have
had to find new ways to conduct outreach.
To that end, NYC Census 2020 has partnered
with Complete Count Fund awardees
to launch a brand new digital organizing
campaign across messaging apps like
WhatsApp, WeChat, KakaoTalk, and Viber
to help spread the word about the 2020 Census.
The campaign is based around 15 new
group chats housed on these platforms,
each designed for a different New York immigrant
and language community, from
Russian to Korean to Urdu and beyond.
These apps often serve as the primary way
community members speak to each other,
especially as they are social distancing.
Each group will act as a hub where trusted
community leaders can share key census
information and resources that other volunteers
can use to help get out the count
across their own networks.
It’s no secret that many of the communities
suffering most from COVID-19 include
immigrants and people whose first
language is not English. And as we at NYC
Census 2020 know, these same communities
tend to suffer some of the worst undercounts
in the census, which results in
them getting far less than their fair share
of funding for important public resources
like hospitals and emergency services.
These communities desperately need a
complete count to get the resources they deserve.
And to reach a complete count, New
Yorkers need ways to share information
from trusted sources and encourage their
friends, families, and neighbors to participate
in the 2020 Census.
Many New Yorkers have already been
doing similar work forming local mutual
aid groups and other groups to share information
and resources as we fight COVID-19,
but language barriers can leave many behind.
We welcome all who speak one of the
over 200 languages spoken in New York
City to join our efforts by joining a WhatsApp
group at nyc.gov/census.
Fill out the census now at my2020census.
gov.
/census
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