HEALING WITH INTEGRITY
McGeehan, a critical care and palliative medicine nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, found herself facing an unimaginable situation. Cloaked from head to toe in a biocontainment suit, McGeehan entered the room of a COVID-19 patient experiencing respiratory failure. As the doors slid shut behind her, McGeehan felt as if she’d walked into an isolated moonscape—whooshing sounds circulated through her air-purifying hood, with the hiss of the life-support machines keeping her patient alive. Between the stressors of COVID, wearing the containment suit in this eerie environment, and feeling emotionally and physically isolated by the pandemic, McGeehan momentarily lost confidence. “I was acutely aware that I didn’t necessarily have the resources and support to do my job well and safely,” she recalls. “The patient was breathing fast and unable to articulate his needs, and I just tried to
