When the call went out to retired nurses and doctors to step up to help hospitals cope with the surge in COVID-19 patients, Dr. Herbert “Hub” Brennan was one of the first to volunteer.

Brennan practices medicine and has an office on Route 2 in East Greenwich. He’s booked. But he felt he had to help and he had to make the time. He calls upon his colleagues to do likewise.

He is paid a “stipend” that helps offset revenues lost from his practice, but that’s not what made him decide to volunteer to help. Rather, he said that is what he signed up for when he became doctor.

The following is a digest of the interview Brennan gave John Howell, editor of the Warwick Beacon, on Monday morning describing the conditions and his experience at the Care New England field hospital in Cranston this past weekend. Brennan’s remarks appear within quotes, while additional context is provided through italicized passages.

Different hospital, different care

“From the patient perspective, the illness is the illness. Again, from a patient perspective, environmentally, it’s [the field hospital] a little different. I don’t think it’s any less comfortable. In fact, it could be even more, since it’s more airy and roomy. But from the physician perspective it’s really interesting and challenging in a positive way … Something like this forces us to work outside of the box, and think outside of the box, and be creative. At the same time, being extremely, extremely cautious not to get sick in the process. So that’s different for the doctor than doing rounds as I do in the evening. It’s a lot different now. It’s not harder; it’s just very different … I’m not so glued to a computer or a computer screen, and so forth. It is reminiscent of medicine that you and I might think was practiced in years gone by, more focused on the patient and less on the paperwork kind of thing.”

Patient perspective

For the patients admitted to the field hospital, there is a lot of downtime.

“They’ve arranged for online devices, be they iPads or Chromebooks or Kindles. I saw that some of the patients had their own computers. There’s wireless online access.”

The field hospital is currently accepting book and electronic donations for patients.“The other thing too, that’s interesting about this facility, unlike a negative pressure room that a hospitalized patient would sit in and they can’t move and they can’t leave, the whole facility, believe it or not, is negative pressure. So patients who are capable of ambulating safely can get up and walk about and so forth. Interestingly, it’s one advantage of being treated there versus a negative pressure room at the hospital. There’s far more freedom and latitude for the patient to move about.”

During Brennan’s shift at the field hospital, 11 COVID patients were admitted. He described some of the patients who he worked with. The patients, aged 60 to 80 years old, range in severity.“You’ve got patients who could go either way. You’ve got patients who are stable, and you simply are waiting for them to both improve and finish their course of anti-viral and steroid medication … You’ve got other patients who are fairly new admits, who haven’t proven themselves stable and their condition could go in the wrong direction. But those bear watching because if they deteriorate, they need to be transported promptly back to the hospital. You’ve got a population of patients and they fit into one of those two categories, but you’re not sure which because due to the nature of the illness, you’re not sure what it’s going to do to each individual patient. They indeed might get better. They indeed might take a turn for the worse. And there’s really no reliable way to predict that.”

Brennan also described his time at the field hospital as a humanizing experience.

“Aside from the fact that these are COVID patients, these are our neighbors. You know, there’s one couple, both positive. She was ready to go home clinically, he needed another day or two, and she said, ‘I’m not going anywhere, I’m staying with him.’ That’s kind of interesting. We had another patient who is deaf mute, and we needed to use online interpretive services in order to communicate with her and that worked remarkably well. Another gent, interestingly, is basically just an alcohol withdrawal patient that happened to test positive. That group, even though it’s a relatively small group, it has a smattering of just about everything. It is clearly representative of the things and illnesses that afflict our neighbors.”

Taking every precaution

It’s more than just wearing a mask and washing his hands for Brennan, who describes a “very regimented” process for protecting himself against COVID.“The equipment is top rate. It’s put on properly, it’s taken off properly … After seeing the patients, we exit into a special room where there’s an assistant to help up properly take off our contaminated gear. Then we exit through either a ladies room or a men’s room where we can wash up further and shower. And then we step out and do all the charting and noting and communicating with families.”

Brennan is taking just as many precautions when he arrives home to his wife, Dale.“At home, the last thing I want to do is get Dale sick. So we planned ahead. We’re in separate bedrooms now. And we don’t sit directly across from each other when we’re eating. The hugs and kisses, they’re on hold. I’ll try to wear a mask for the next several weeks until we’re all vaccinated. I shower before I leave the facility, and put my scrub clothes right in the washing machine when I come into the house.”

‘Our time is now’

Brennan’s next shift is on Sunday, unless the census picks up, “in which case they’ll need more of us.” He described working alongside some of the “most wonderful people doing this for the right reason,” like one traveling nurse he met from the Bronx.“These are fabulous traveling nurses. There’s one young lady, she’s from the Bronx, and I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ She said, ‘Well, I was in the middle of this in the first wave in the Bronx, and people came to help us. So I had a reprieve. I want to help people elsewhere.’ So she rented an Airbnb in a bad neighborhood in Providence and she comes in and works 12-hour shifts in this facility.”

But Brennan also emphasized that the facility is strikingly understaffed. During the weekend, he described three physicians on staff – himself as attending physician, a resident from the Brown University and Kent Hospital residency program, and a resuscitation specialist.“Right now, there are about 10 community doctors that have stepped up and offered to help. And we really need more than that. I’ve said all along, this is what we signed on for when we submitted our medical school applications. And for me, that was over 30 years ago. And I’ve also though that to practice medicine properly requires self-sacrifice and inconvenience and exactly where we are. We really do need colleagues to step up and help us here. Our time is now. The community needs us and the hospital needs us. It’s not forever, but it’s certainly going to be for several weeks.

“The important thing is, particularly for those that haven’t cared for patients in a while, there’s a ton of support. There’s nothing to be intimidated by. I know that anybody that would consider it would find it very rewarding.”