l
ast spring, as Adam Mattison waited out a layover in Georgia, his phone buzzed. On the other end was the recruiter he’d called two
weeks prior to raise his hand to go to New York and provide critical relief to overrun healthcare workers there. “Originally, I was to go up there and help out by working in a clinic, screening people,” Mattison remembers. “But when they called, they were like, ‘Hey, your role changed. You’re going to be treating COVID patients in a makeshift hospital.’ I was like, OK, will you teach me how? They’re like, ‘Don’t worry. No one knows how to treat COVID.’ ” Whatever illusions Mattison may have had before that moment crumbled around him. The product of Mountain View, Missouri — who had only recently started his career as a family nurse practitioner at Ozark Healthcare’s clinic in Mountain Grove — suddenly felt very far from home. “I was like, ‘All right, as long as you’ve got prop- er gear and stuff,’ ” he remembers saying into the
36 | OZARKS HEALTHCARE | SPRING 2021
phone. “I wasn’t going to go home with my tail be- tween my legs.” Mattison landed at the Billie Jean King Center, one of a handful of makeshift hospitals set up to handle the tsunami of COVID-19 cases pummeling the city’s healthcare system. It was an atmosphere unlike anything he’d ever seen. “When I got up there, they had over 900 peo- ple dying a day in New York,” he said. “Hospi- tals were overrun; we got to do a walk-through, and they had a ward in the cafeteria. There were people in every closet, down the hallways. All of their OR’s were turned into ICU’s. They were busting at the gills. “They were really happy when these makeshift hospitals opened up. Ours was a 450-bed unit in this U.S. Open tennis center in Flushing, New York, just north of Brooklyn and Queens.” What followed were four of the most impactful weeks of his young medical career, working shoul- der-to-shoulder with healthcare workers from around the country.
Clockwise from left: The New York city skyline.
A makeshift hospital was set COVID-19 cases.
Mattison was issued one gown and one mask for his entire tour.
Photos courtesy of Mattison
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44
