From speaking at the podium to getting right back into the thick of things, Dr. Jane Philpott said she is happy to put her medical skills back to work.

“This is what we train for,” Philpott said. “We train to be ready to respond to the health needs of our communities. You always hope you never have to use them in a scenario like this, in the same way the military hopes they never have to confront their worst kinds of conflict, but when it happens, health workers are ready to step up and put themselves on the line.

“It’s a powerful thing to behold.”

Since early last week, Philpott, Queen’s University’s incoming dean of health sciences and director of the School of Medicine, has been donning a gown, gloves and face mask at one of Markham’s COVID-19 assessment centres.

“I had not decided whether I was going to return to clinical practice before moving to Kingston, but once the pandemic broke, I realized how urgent the need was for front-line health workers,” said Philpott, who was already on staff at Markham-Stouffville Hospital.

“Obviously, all of my scheduled speaking engagements were cancelled, so I decided I wanted to lend a hand.”

While Kingston’s assessment centre is at the Memorial Centre, Markham-Stouffville’s is in an extra-large trailer set up next to the hospital. Patients there wait in their vehicles to be assessed. As a physician, Philpott’s role is to examine health-care workers and those who are vulnerable.

“We assess those people, determine if they’re really sick and need to go into the hospital versus the majority, which we will decide whether they need to have a test done and then we give them advice based on their symptoms,” Philpott said. “(My role is) assessing people who are at high risk for having COVID.”

She said she’s seen firsthand and on social media how health-care workers are becoming overwhelmed. She noted that Canada’s aggressive response to the outbreak and the implementation of physical distancing measures has helped the situation.

“We hope we will not see our intensive care units completely overwhelmed as we’ve seen happen in Italy, but people don’t know what to expect or what the days ahead will hold,” Philpott said. “There’s certainly lots of concern about that, but also lots of good work being done at hospitals and health centres across the country to try to make sure that we’re prepared for the worst.”

Several good Cdn sites & media outlets are tracking updates for new #covid19 cases and deaths across the country. This one is updated as each provincial report is available. It's quite user-friendly and details are searchable: https://t.co/1wLlZ4QrUQ pic.twitter.com/7kMWnI5RiX — Jane Philpott (@janephilpott) March 27, 2020

Philpott said she knows how much Canadians care about each other and she’s heard from many asking what they can do to help.

“There’s a job for everyone to do in terms of containing this pandemic,” Philpott explained. “For many people, their job is to stay home and make sure they don’t risk getting the infection themselves or passing it on. The more people can stay home and take care of themselves, the more we make sure that we won’t overwhelm the health systems in the country.”

She admitted she’s concerned having seen the increasing number of infections and deaths in the country.

“We don’t know where we are on the curve in terms of when things are going to start to improve and the numbers are going to go down,” Philpott said. “We could be in for a long stretch of time.

“Like everyone, I look forward to getting through to the other side of this, but there’s going to be sadness and suffering between now and then.”

scrosier@postmedia.com

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