How we coped with covid-19—and silver linings


CHRISTMAS 2020: M*A*S*H

How we coped with covid-19—and silver linings
Doctors and patients tell Kathy Oxtoby what has got them through the year, and the positives they
have taken from 2020

Kathy Oxtoby journalist

Zoom meetings and audio books, camaraderie with
colleagues and royal college work, running and long
walks. These are just some of the ways doctors have
been dealing with this difficult year.

To describe the year as challenging is, of course, a
massive understatement. But along with the
challenges presented by the pandemic have come
positives, clinicians say, from a greater awareness of
mental health and the importance of equality, to
cleaner air and the closeness of family.

AppreciationoftheNHSbroughtmetotears

Lade Smith, consultant psychiatrist, visiting senior
lecturer, and clinical director, forensic services,
Maudsley Hospital, London, and clinical director,
National Collaborating Centre, Royal College of
Psychiatrists
What’s saved me has been audio books—after being
at a computer reading all day I feel I can’t pick up
another book—and late evening walks.

I’m having more meetings with colleagues, where we
pass on information but also check in with each other
to ask how we’re feeling.

IT turned into superheroes, putting over 800 staff to
remote access in five days. And colleagues are
covering for others who are unable to come to work
because they are shielding or in a potentially high
risk group. I’ve been really impressed with how
readily they’ve been doing this.

And it’s been heartening that people, some of whom
I haven’t heard from for a long time, are remembering
me, remembering I’m a health worker, and asking,
“Are you ok, are you safe?”

The first time that people clapped for the NHS I was
a bit cynical. By the third time, when things had got
so overwhelming, hearing everyone clapping I found
myself in tears to hear that ring of appreciation for
the NHS.

I have re-evaluated what’s important in my
life

Ian Higginson, consultant in emergency medicine,
University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, and vice
president, Royal College of Emergency Medicine
Having the family together during lockdown was
reassuring—it felt like we were “hunkering down”
for whatever was to come. I also have a friendship
network composed of people with a strong sense of
community and a good sense of humour.

Being part of an incredible emergency department
team has helped. We stayed positive, and it felt good
to continue to provide care for patients during this
time of great need. And my royal college work has
enabled me to feel I’ve made a contribution both to
disseminating information relating to covid and
emergency medicine’s response to it.

The pandemic has prompted me to re-evaluate what’s
important in life and get my work-life balance sorted.
I’m a drummer, and playing live is hard to do during
a pandemic, but I’ve learnt more about mixing and
music production.

Video conferencing has enabled those of us working
in emergency medicine to connect with each other
across national and international borders, sharing
our concerns and successes. I hope we’ll continue to
share our incredible experiences across the world.

I’ve been out exploring in the fresh air

David Turner, GP partner, Chorley Wood Health
Centre, Hertfordshire
Our team really pulled together and knuckled down
to convert the practice mostly to phone appointments,
then later, to start ramping up face-to-face
appointments.

As well as maintaining the surgery routine to keep
things as normal as possible, I’ve been cycling,
walking, and exploring local areas I didn’t know
existed.

There’s been less traffic on the roads so it’s been nice
to be out in the fresh air, which is cleaner. With less
traffic my journey to work has gone down from an
hour and a half to 15 minutes, which has made a huge
difference to my day.

During the first few weeks [of the pandemic] things
were quieter, and I had time to catch up on routine
stuff like updating records and QOF [Quality and
Outcomes Framework]. And we were only dealing
with patients with serious problems—so for a while
there were no “worried well.”

Clinical researchers are more collaborative
now

Sarah Markham, visiting researcher, Institute of
Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s

1the bmj | BMJ 2020;371:m4335 | doi: 10.1136/bmj.m4335

FEATURE

London, UK

kathyoxtoby1@gmail.com

Cite this as: BMJ 2020;371:m4335

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4335

Published: 10 December 2020

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4335
http://www.bmj.com/


College London, and member of The BMJ patient panel

Ironically, what’s helped me is that I’m a mental health patient.
This has given me so many opportunities through life to build up
resilience, to learn to take things in my stride, as well as experience
of facing uncertainty, negative outcomes, and risk.

I’ve been detained under the Mental Health Act so have had previous
experience of a kind of lockdown—so nothing that has been
implemented has bothered me.

As I’m an academic researcher, covid has brought me lots of
interesting work. I’m currently working on a systematic review of
mental health research that’s been initiated in response to the
pandemic.

Historically, clinical research teams can be competitive with each
other, whereas now it’s in everyone’s best interest to collaborate to
better understand the virus, which is a positive change.

“Pizza Fridays” have kept me going

Richard Fieldhouse, chair of National Association of Sessional
GPs (NASGP) and locum GP in Chichester, West Sussex
At the beginning of the pandemic across the country most locum
work was cancelled, so doing [fewer] sessions helped me focus on
my work with the National Association of Sessional GPs (NASGP).

What’s been getting me through is being able to make a difference
to the lives of GP locums. My wife—also a locum—and I both help
run NASGP, and we’ve been spending time making the
organisation’s locum IT software LocumDeck more powerful and
much simpler to use.

We’ve also launched a network of GP locum chambers, which are
managed local collectives of self-employed locums supporting local
practices.

My pizza oven has kept me going. I bought a portable pizza oven a
few years back, and I’ve been having pizza Fridays.

As much as I miss my sons visiting, I’m no longer exposed to their
cats’ allergens. So now I can go running for 10 miles without any
puff of an inhaler for the first time in decades.

Running is a form of meditation and relaxation

Ceinwen Giles, director of partnerships and evaluation, Shine
Cancer Support, a cancer support charity for young people

Awful as things have been this year, what has got me through is
the team I work with. A small team of five, we have all had a cancer
diagnosis, are all in the same situation, and stay in touch with each
other personally as well as professionally.

Running has helped a lot. I have an immune deficiency, and in the
darkest days of lockdown, when I was having to shield, I went
running every day by myself. For me it’s a form of meditation and
relaxation.

It’s been nice to spend more time with my husband and
daughter, even though there were times when we drove each other
crazy.

We used to run three-day retreats on coping with a cancer diagnosis
but have had to redesign these programmes to be delivered online.
Even if things go back to normal we’ll keep some of our online
programmes because we can reach people in different parts of the
country more easily.

There’s been a lot of camaraderie within our online patient
community, and it’s helped to make sure people don’t feel alone
and isolated.

My NHS family gave me a sense of purpose

Farah Bhatti, consultant cardiothoracic surgeon and council
member of Royal College of Surgeons of England
While so many people were furloughed, shielding, and feeling
isolated, being able to continue working with my NHS family gave
me a sense of purpose through the crisis.

It’s also been great to share guidance and help to define best practice
and with issues concerning healthcare staff such as PPE availability
and testing.

I also have an extremely supportive husband, who is with me
through thick and thin.

This year has shone a light on the terrible things happening in the
world, such as the increased risk of covid in ethnic minority
communities and the killing of George Floyd, renewing interest in
Black Lives Matter. We mustn’t stop trying to create a more equitable
society.

I’m very involved in equality, diversity, and inclusion—it’s what
drives me. I feel honoured to have been invited onto an independent
panel to look at diversity in the leadership of the Royal College of
Surgeons of England. That’s a good thing to come out of this difficult
year.

“Online connections are like having an extended family

Liz Bragg, associate specialist paediatrician, Cardiff and Vale
University Health Board
Zoom meetings with colleagues stopped me quietly going mad with
my own company. I worked from home for six weeks—I was shielded
because of health problems—so seeing people by Zoom made a
massive difference.

Group chats on Facebook with like-minded people is like having
an extended family. We take it in turns to support each other, share
how awful things feel, and get group reassurance.

I was impressed with the way our IT department organised laptops
for staff to work from home. I’ve been asking for years if I can access
emails from home—during the pandemic this happened within
days.

It’s good that lots of people are suddenly thinking about mental
health. There’s a greater awareness that everybody needs to watch
everybody’s backs to make sure they’re coping.

I liked the lack of emissions—that we were letting the planet breathe
again. And having connections with people will continue to get me
through. Staying connected is what makes us human.

the bmj | BMJ 2020;371:m4335 | doi: 10.1136/bmj.m43352

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