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2020 MEDICAL YEAR
IN REVIEW

On the Other Side...

What Ifs After the Pandemic

By Timothy C. Hlavinka, MD

In late January, I received a frantic call from a good friend;
she was in Daegu, South Korea teaching English as a second language.
Many of her students were from the Church that suffered the early
outbreak of contagion. She was scheduled to come back home in early
February and sought my advice.
At the same time, a colleague received an email from a friend in
Wuhan sharing conclusive evidence of the unpreventable spread of
this new plague.
The next day, the Chief Scientific Officer of a microbial genetics lab
for which I consult called to ask if I had any connections with research
facilities that could provide the viral genetic sequences for COVID-
19. He had called the CDC and offered to turn his lab into a COVID-
19 testing facility, promising 100,000 tests a week within three weeks.
To paraphrase a milder version of the conversation, he was told to “go
jump off a cliff ”.
My friend was to arrive home from South Korea via DFW in a few
days. I made calls to the CDC and Texas State Department of Health
Service (DHS) to find out what protocols were being put in place for
travelers. No one had any answers; no one seemed to know anything.
Our own, San Antonio Metro Health Department was the only source
of reliable information; they suggested my friend quarantine in Dallas.
She got off her plane in DFW with 348 other passengers, all in masks,
and no one even asked where she had been traveling. The stage for the
inevitable spread of this virus had been set.
I illustrate my story as I imagine we all have stories similar to this.
That gut-check moment when you first realized that we were on our
own, that our most esteemed institutions were failing us. We did what
we always do; we rolled up our sleeves and went to work.
In every town all across America, hundreds of healthcare workers Changes such as telehealth and virtual education are a certainty to be-
manned the front lines, risking their health, their lives and the health come fixtures in our practice environment; innovation and ingenuity
and lives of their families. Others went to work on strategy and exe- will still be rewarded and utilized. We are uncertain that we will see
cution. Many of us had to go back to medical school, devouring a adequate support for these changes, or if once again we will be asked
mountain of new information daily. Our younger colleagues received to bear the burden of the changes in healthcare.
years of maturity in a few months. We relied on our knowledge and Fundamental challenges to the acquisition of scientific knowledge
experience, our wits and our guts in high-risk, high-stakes moments will have to be overcome. Indeed, the concept of the randomized clin-
from the bedside to the virtual situation rooms. Once again, the public ical trial is under scrutiny. My MRI of the future is no more accurate
will never know the magnitude of our sacrifice. This is our solemn ob- than yours, but I offer some thoughts based on my first virtual CME.
ligation, and we met it again. No one had to recruit or cajole; we just Susan L. Prescott, MD PhD, a pediatrician/epidemiologist in West-
showed up. ern Australia offers bold ideas. Her research basis is termed "local proj-
We as front-line workers see certainty and uncertainty in our future. ects with a global vision." In her ORIGINS Project, she seeks 10,000

26 SAN ANTONIO MEDICINE • December 2020