Texas doctor reflects on the lessons and loss in 2021

Amna Nawaz:

As 2021 comes to a close, we want to take a look back at a year of immense challenge and loss, but also a year of hope.

In recent days, we have reconnected with a number of you, viewers and guests we have interviewed over the past year.

We wanted to hear how you have handled the last 12 months, and your wishes for 2022.

Tonight, we get a view from a doctor in Texas.

Dr. Joseph Chang, Parkland Health and Hospital System: This is Joe Chang. I am the chief medical officer here at Parkland Health and Hospital System here in Dallas.

The last time I spoke to you was August of 2021. It's taken a sharp turn for the worse really over the last few days. Even at the end of last week, we went from about 60 to about 100 cases in total at the hospital.

So, it's definitely not going in the in the right direction, and Omicron is doing what we thought it would. I am a little bit surprised that we are still here talking about yet another variant. Back in January of 2021, the vaccine had just come out. There was so much hope surrounding what that might bring to us.

What surprised me was that such a large part of our population chose not to avail themselves of that preventative treatment. Well over 90 percent of our admissions are still unvaccinated. Folks are able to be as, sort of brash as they want about vaccination before they feel the effects of the disease itself.

And then, once the disease takes hold, everyone pretty much backs up on that belief and really wishes that they got vaccinated before this happened. But, again, as I have said to everybody, it is too late at that point. We cannot go back in time and get you vaccinated. Once you have been infected, vaccination does nothing.

And we have so much compassion for the individuals who come in and they get sick enough and get ready to be intubated and put on ventilators. The amount of regret and sorrow in their voices is something that's almost unbearable for us.

Watching my front-line workers and the support staff day after day bring themselves back into the hospital to fight this disease that seems like it's never going away, this year, in particular, obviously, my family and I, my colleagues and I, friends and I have spent a lot of time talking about what has occurred.

I mean, it's affected every aspect of our lives, right? I still go back to feeling that heroes emerge, people running towards danger, as opposed to away from it.

The other thing that we reflect on a lot is loss. I myself have lost friends and family. If we're able to come together as a community, then I think we will see this sort of fade into the background, as flu has, as a lot of other diseases that used to claim millions of lives.

As long as we come together as a society and control the situation, COVID, just like other diseases, will sort of fade into sort of the backdrop of community health.

At some point, we will all decide that this is something we have to do together, regardless of the politics around it, the rhetoric around it, the emotions around it, that we will come together and get that done.

Amna Nawaz:

Thank you to Dr. Chang for reconnecting with us after a tough year.