Author Archives: Kate Hidalgo Bellows

Scott Darrah is an advanced practice nurse at the University of Virginia Medical Center, where he tends to COVID-19 patients in an acute care setting. And he is a leader in developing three acute care units to handle coronavirus patients as special pathogens units, or SPUs. Several acute care units and intensive care units at […]

Jessica Denomme, a medical intensive care unit nurse at the University of Virginia Medical Center, has taken on a special project in addition to treating COVID-19 patients — collaborating with the School of Engineering to build personal protective equipment for health care workers using 3D-printing technology. Denomme said she had reached out to biomedical engineering […]

University of Virginia Health System medical intensive care unit nurse Charlotte Brouwer’s newest self-care purchase is a bit unique. Her purchase was also good for the community. “My fiancé and I actually just adopted a cat yesterday,” she said. “Clyde. He is a little tuxedo kitten.” Brouwer adopted the cat through the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA, […]

With the Virginia stay-at-home order in place until June 10, the daily (and nightly) rhythms of the University of Virginia Emergency Department have looked a bit different lately. Billy Burris — a self-described “baby nurse,” having just graduated from the university’s School of Nursing in 2019 — is an emergency department nurse at the Medical […]

At Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital, not-for-profit community hospital, Dr. Mark Mandichak oversees the care of patients in the hospital’s two COVID-19 units, which opened in March.  “I think it’s been helpful to have the COVID units so specifically because even though it is challenging and is trying, and you are working hours and there is […]

University of Virginia medical intensive care unit nurse Miriam Karunakaran said she never thought she would have found herself fighting a pandemic. She said the experience has been “absolutely humbling.” This is a common sentiment among nurses and doctors I have interviewed — astonishment at one’s positioning at the center of the fight and gratitude […]

Dean Pam Cipriano of the University of Virginia School of Nursing said she is not sure how many alumni work at the Medical Center. But she knows it’s a lot. “Oh my goodness, I could not even give you a number because there are so many,” she said. “Every year, we have about a third […]

As a medical intensive care unit nurse, Kendall Barger tends to the critically ill, including those teetering at the edge of death. With the coronavirus crisis, Barger said, COVID-19 patients are separated from non-COVID-19 patients in a Special Pathogens Unit, and the unit is staffed by MICU nurses. Barger is one of the nurses working […]

Dr. Taison Bell is busy. A physician of pulmonary and critical care medicine and infectious disease at the University of Virginia, he directs the medical intensive care unit, which treats patients with the most severe cases of COVID-19. In that role, Bell takes primary care of patients and provides expertise about infectious diseases. Additionally, he […]

Those who have had to refit their lives to the current COVID-19 pandemic know that life is dramatically different now. Health care workers experience these changes to an even greater extent, as many risk exposure to the virus constantly, must distance themselves from their families, work without sufficient personal protective equipment and/or pull extra hours […]