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Department of Surgery, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA; 2Division of Academic General Pediatrics, The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, Bronx, NY, USA; 3Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.

were in the sand. As COVID-19 was spreading O urlikeheads wildfire across New York City in March, we started 1

hearing about “redeployments.” As a general surgery resident and general pediatrician, we believed no one would ask us to care for adults on floor and ICU units. We were wrong. Our personal lives and clinical practices have been completely upended. Along the way, we learned about the unpredictability of life and the remarkable generosity and ingenuity of humankind.

Duy: I started the trauma surgery rotation in midMarch. One morning, I examined a patient who had been admitted overnight after a fall. Other than gloves, I did not wear any other personal protective equipment; the patient exhibited no respiratory symptoms. A few days later, that same patient developed acute respiratory failure and was intubated. Our team compulsively self-monitored for symptoms while we waited for the test results. The COVID-19 test returned positive, and the patient ultimately succumbed to the disease. Soon, it became apparent that every patient who came through our trauma bay was a potential, if not likely, source of exposure. The feeling of uncertainty deepened among all of us. Hong-An: I had trouble sleeping, and my anxiety levels skyrocketed as I left for work each morning. I was nervous about my one-hour subway commute to the Bronx, where I could not adequately maintain social distance on a crowded train. I became terrified of the rising xenophobia against Asian Americans.2, 3 On multiple occasions, I raised the volume on my headphones and furtively avoided eye contact, drowning out racist comments such as “you can only catch the virus if you go to Chinatown.” Duy: Any sense of normalcy at work quickly disappeared. Soon, all elective surgeries were cancelled; even acute appendicitis and cholecystitis were preferentially treated with antibiotics. To avoid exposure, residents took weekly turns between staffing the Received May 18, 2020 Revised July 1, 2020 Accepted August 4, 2020

hospital and staying home as backup for emergent operations. This was a devastating blow to my training. For the next two weeks, I spent most days incessantly checking my phone or the electronic medical record for surgical emergencies that never happened. As the disruption wore on, restlessness and frustration also started to build up. Hong-An: Parents got nervous about taking their children outside, including going to clinic. We agonized—how do we adequately care for our vulnerable families if they are afraid to come to one of their safe spaces? In a matter of days, we shifted to telephone visits, and started video visits shortly after. Often, after addressing the initial ailment, these calls shifted to managing the parents’ anxiety. Some worried about buying food, formula, and diapers. Others we