44 THE QUEENS COURIER • HEALTH • MAY 20, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
health
NewYork-Presbyterian Queens health care workers
speak on fi ghting COVID-19 and anti-Asian racism
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
cmohamed@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
One aft ernoon in March, Dr. Cynthia
Pan was out getting lunch in Douglaston
with her teenage son. As they walked
back to their car, a man suddenly charged
at her. She narrowly escaped unharmed,
thanks in part to her son who intervened,
distracted the man, and eventually drove
him away.
Pan attributes his intervention to the
fact that they had discussed such scenarios
and her son was prepared to act.
Following the harassment that nearly
escalated into violence, Pan doesn’t go
in public without three items she feels
are vital to her safety: a whistle, an alarm
siren and mace.
“If someone is coming towards me on
the sidewalk, I step off of the sidewalk
onto the street so I’m not in anyone’s way,”
Pan said. “If I go outside for a walk by the
hospital or to pick up some food, I ask
someone to walk with me. It’s not right
to have to live like this, and you have to
be prepared.”
Th e past year has been challenging for
Pan, who experienced the COVID-19
pandemic fi rsthand as a frontline healthcare
worker treating patients at what was
once the epicenter of the pandemic, and
also when she became severely ill with the
virus last April.
Pan is the division chief of Geriatrics
and Palliative Care Medicine and a
Designated Institution Offi cial (DIO) of
Graduate Medical Education (GME) at
NewYork-Presbyterian Queens Hospital
in Flushing.
“It was like a war zone. Every day walking
in the halls, we would be running
into our hospital leaders and they would
say, ‘two more units have to be converted
to a COVID unit’ and by the height of
pandemic, our hospital had 93 percent of
COVID patients, seeing the highest numbers
in our health system,” Pan said.
Yet despite that heroism and everything
she had been through, Pan also found her
and the Asian American Pacifi c Islander
(AAPI) community scapegoated for the
very virus she had worked to tirelessly
combat.
“Aft er all the hard work we did to try
to do our best to save patients, to comfort
families … to then get assaulted and
insulted, it’s just very, very disheartening,
and not acceptable,” Pan said.
A resident of Great Neck, Long Island,
Pan was born in Taiwan and grew up in
Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Paraguay.
She is fl uent in Spanish and also speaks
Mandarin. However, growing up in South
America was diffi cult for Pan because she
“looked diff erent” from the other children
in school, she said. When her family
moved to Canarsie, Brooklyn, in 1979,
someone burned a large cross on the front
lawn of their home.
“My brother and I would hide behind
the window while trying to see who
would come again aft er that,” Pan said.
As racial tensions are currently high in
the U.S. amid growing anger over police
killings of Black men and women fueling
the Black Lives Matter Movement, Asians
and Asian Americans are now rallying to
#StopAsianHate amid the escalating violent
attacks against the community that
has been blamed for the coronavirus.
Last June, according to Pan, the hospital’s
residents had approached her about
the murder of George Floyd and leading
a rally in support of BLM, followed by a
rally against anti-Asian racism.
“We are on the right track. Our young
generation, I give them so much credit.
Th ey went through hell and back in
the past year and they’ve stood up for the
right thing,” Pan said.
If there is a silver lining to the past year,
it’s that COVID showed Pan the power of
solidarity — how coming together can get
people through times of crisis. She keeps
that in mind as she speaks up about racism
and Asian hate.
“People have to stand up for each other
and do the right thing,” Pan said. “During
those hazy moments of COVID, I realized
one thing that’s really important for me is
that we have to take care of our patients,
of course, but we also have to take care
of ourselves—and we have to take care of
each other.”
Like Pan, Dr. Seunghyup Baek,
an internal medicine resident at
NewYork-Presbyterian Queens,
had put out a call to action for
everyone to speak up when the
hospital held a moment of silence
for the victims of the AAPI hate
crimes. Pan and Baek were part of
the NewYork-Presbyterian Queens
inclusion group talk, where they
encouraged staff members to speak
up about anti-Asian hate and about
bystander training, using the BLS
(Basic Life Support) model to help
a victim.
“If we stay silent, it
means we are no different
than those
who see the violent
incidents and
ignore them,”
Baek said.
“Silence is not
the solution.
Working at a
hospital, we
are here to
help heal
p at i e n t s ,
and I
believe we
can also
help heal
these racial
divides.”
Born in South
Korea and raised in Atlanta, GA, Baek
currently lives in Flushing where there
is a large majority of Asian Americans.
According to Baek, it’s hard to feel any
disparities since there isn’t much of a
diff erence, but when it comes to walking
outside in other parts of Queens or
Manhattan, he becomes vigilant about his
surroundings.
“I avoid dark alleys and nighttime outings,”
Baek said. “Why is my freedom limited
this way because of the rising violence
— that is one thing that really bothers
me. Here in New York, it’s not as
severe as other states or parts of the U.S.,
where I feel for other Asian Americans.”
With AAPI hate crimes on the rise,
Baek has been checking in with his parents,
who own a beauty supply store in
Atlanta, several times a day aft er the mass
shooting that claimed the lives of eight
people — six of whom were women of
Asian descent. When his parents don’t
answer, he starts to worry, he said.
“It gives me a little bit of anxiety, wondering
if something is wrong with them,”
Baek said. “When there’s any news in
Georgia my attention goes straight there.”
According to Baek, he had just fi nished
his shift when he saw the news
about a gunman who had opened fi re
in the Atlanta-area. He had immediately
called his parents, who are located just
9 miles from where two of the shootings
took place. For years, according
to Baek, his parents
had encountered verbal
attacks from customers
who weren’t satisfi
ed with the service
or if they cannot get
certain items, oft en
saying racial slurs.
“Th e sad thing is that they don’t know
what’s wrong with it when they say hateful
things to Asians and can get away with
it,” Baek said. “In Atlanta, people scope it
up and move on. Th ere’s not much knowledge
on why it’s not okay to say that to a
person.”
Growing up, Baek experienced numerous
accounts in middle school and high
school when his classmates made fun of
his appearance, his accent and his culture,
saying it was just the tip of the iceberg
for him.
“One thing I really want to point out
is that Asian Americans feel like we are
excluded and are treated as foreigners and
not as Americans when people look at us
and say, ‘Where are you really from?’”
Baek said.
According to Baek, it starts with teaching
kids about Asian American culture
and heritage and their contributions to
America — none of which is included in
U.S. history lessons in school, he said.
“I am an American citizen and if the
U.S. needs me, I will defend this country
just like other people. We vote. We pay
taxes. We do everything as an American.
We obey the rules. What makes us different
from other people?” Baek said. “If
we start excluding people, there will be a
divide and our strength will become our
weakness.”
While Baek is encouraging people to
come together in the fi ght against anti-
Asian hate, he said he is also touched by
Congresswoman Grace Meng’s leadership
on combating the issue.
“She spoke as if those victims were her
own family,” Baek said. “I think there
should be more voices in politics to represent
Asian Americans so our voice will be
as prominent as many other ethnicities.”
Photos courtesy of NYPQ
Dr. Seunghyup Baek
(l.) and Dr. Cynthia
Pan of NewYork-
Presbyterian
Queens.
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