Miscellaneous
When a patient is admitted to a hospital to be treated for COVID-19, one of the first healthcare professionals they will probably see is a respiratory therapist. If the patient is sick enough to be admitted with the disease, he or she is likely having trouble breathing and it's a respiratory therapist's job to insert the tube that connects them to a ventilator. That can be frightening. "You can see it in their face and in their eyes," said Nicole Smallwood, a respiratory therapist at UR Medicine's Strong Memorial Hospital. Since the coronavirus started spreading locally, Smallwood estimates that she has treated dozens of people infected with the virus, ranging in age from their 30s to their 70s. They don't all need to be intubated. Some patients just require breathing treatments with an oxygen mask. "And then there's people we see," she said, "they're almost deceiving because they look okay and then we'll get their labs and their X-rays and we're just, like, 'Oh my gosh, they will