The Pivot

In terms of a universal phenomenon, consider this: Ask any friend or colleague to name a time when seeking medical care, that he or she felt fear, pain or frustration, or even experienced outstanding support or relief from these feelings, and you will get a graphic and detailed recollection of an event from their personal health memory bank. Every medical care consumer has their own intensely personal memories of past care events. Most are eager to offer listeners a timeline followed quickly by a discussion of an array of medical care experiences. These recollections often involve details of conversations from a doctor’s visit or perhaps a glimpse of a harrowing trip to an ER. Perhaps they repeat the compassionate reassurance of a nurse, the direct and solemn recommendation of a specialist or the chat at check-in with ancillary staff. There will be stories of wellness checks peppered with the lasting first impressions of dawning understanding evolving from owning a new diagnosis. Maybe they put into words how they came to the realization of a now permanent change in capacity or a loss of function. To varying degrees, we all seem to have these sorts of retained imprints, and most are willing to share their own medical landmarks through casual conversation. These anecdotal stories will flow on to feature how one person learns to grapple with a diagnosis that brings threats to the illusions of one’s own safety. These reminiscences might be decorated with health-care successes of a patient regaining their independence while learning to overcome and normalize new personal health issues, or lean toward impressions from a scary radiology scan, painful lab draws and even shadowy images of routine childhood vaccinations and visits. But across these lifetimes, most folks would be hard-pressed to frame any health-care memory evoking more confusion, uncertainty and anxiety than those formed in the early months of 2020 as hospitals, doctor’s offices, clinics and diagnostic service centers across the nation along with health-care facilities world-wide in concert with private civilian industry histrionically changed course in response to the global threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.