In the News

We want every biker in a helmet, every child in a car seat/booster, every passenger in every vehicle wearing a seat belt. Every time. Kelly Maynard is a pediatric nurse at Hennepin County Medical Center and a part-time copy editor at the Star Tribune.

“There’s an overwhelming demand to get seen,” Hennepin Healthcare Pediatrician Dr. Krishnan Subrahmanian said.

The intolerance of the COVID-19 era has made visitors and relatives more likely to make threats, but physical conflicts mostly involve confused or upset patients, said Josh Gramling, HCMC’s director of occupational health and wellness.

Hennepin Healthcare’s Jennifer DeCubellis is worried about capacity, too, though her metro medical center generally has adults waiting for placement. “We’ve got an alarming problem. It’s not just a kid’s issue. It’s adults as well,” she said.

“Vulnerability in healthcare is a pretty precious commodity,” said Dr. Mitch Radin, a Clinical Psychologist at Hennepin Healthcare Medical Center (HCMC) in downtown Minneapolis.

A study published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine in 2021 found that because of the trauma doctors treat “shift after shift,” many of them “become unable to recognize when they themselves are injured and suffer, specifically as it pertains to moral injury.”

The researchers found that it’s a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Dr. Tom Klemond, Vice President of Medical Affairs at HCMC, describes it as a crescendo effect.

“Repeated exposure to the wrong thing happening changes us over time,” he said. “Doctors who have been five or 10 years in practice dealing with these events repeatedly, repeatedly. It causes us damage and makes us hard. It makes us callous and distant. It has effects on our health and our emotional well-being.”

“It’s respiratory syncytial virus,” said Dr. Krishnan Subrahmanian, a pediatrician with Hennepin Healthcare. “It affects our lungs, it affects our respiratory system and is descriptive of the way that the virus attacks the lungs. It melds cells together and that’s something you call a syncytia.”

When physical therapist Megan Meyer first met Magnuson after the crash, the young woman was “walking a walker, she had a knee brace on her left knee and her walking pattern was, like, really unstable.”

Meyer recalled Monday that Magnuson initially was limited to yes/no responses.

“Maybe they were accurate. Maybe they weren’t accurate,” she recalled.

“Now, she has really progressed. She [doesn’t] need a walker anymore, really built up her leg strength, especially on that left side from her fractures, and then started walking independently,” Meyer said.

“So seeing all of Anya’s hard work and her passion to truly get better,” said physical therapist Megan Meyer. “That’s the thing is, Anya … her personality and her drive and her determination and her ability to just say, ‘I’m going to make improvements, I’m going to live on my own.’”

“I think it’s just all adding up to be sort of a perfect storm for the number of RSV kids in the hospital,” declares Dr. Stacene Maroushek, a Hennepin Healthcare pediatrician who sees about 20 patients a day.

“We’ve seen a lot of kids with runny nose, coughs, colds. A lot of respiratory illnesses have been emerging, and they’ve been emerging early in the season,” said Dr. Krishnan Subrahmanian, a pediatrician with Hennepin Healthcare.

“Just because something is available, doesn’t make it safe,” said Dr. Travis Olives, an emergency physician and poison expert at Hennepin Healthcare.

“There are some reasons to think that we may have a difficult or more challenging flu season this year, and one of them is that, all of the things that have protected us the past two years are gone,” said Dr. Hannah Lichtsinn, an internist and pediatrician at Hennepin Healthcare.

“You have to protect that brain and the brain is more important than the game in the end,” Hennepin County Medical Center’s Dr. Ashley Bjorklund said. 

“People don’t understand how many social services are available to them. It is up to us to identify and refer eligible patients.” – Phillip Brooks, Hennepin Healthcare

“The long-term effects of COVID are still very real, and so it’s really important that people recognize this is not the common cold,” said Hannah Lichtsinn, a physician with Hennepin Healthcare. 

Dr. David Hilden with Hennepin Healthcare and host of the “Healthy Matters” podcast says he is recommending the shot to most patients over the age of 12 if it’s been two months since completing the original vaccination series.

In terms of eligibility, Hennepin Healthcare internist and pediatrician Dr. Hannah Lichtsinn said the window is wide open.

“A whole lot of people are eligible,” she said. “Also anybody who is eligible for a booster anyways and hasn’t had one is eligible for this. Also if you’re up to date on boosters and it’s been at least two months since your last one, also eligible. That goes for anybody 12 years old or older.”

Hennepin Healthcare pediatrician Dr. Leslie King-Schultz says while children are as likely to get COVID-19 as adults, kids are less likely to become severely ill. But there are still fatality risks.

“There’s an estimate about one child is dying every day of COVID around the country,” said King-Schultz.

At HCMC’s trauma center, health care assistant Becca Wangen finishes with one patient when the arrival of another is announced. She slumps against the wall, clutching her head, before rushing back inside the stabilization room.

“I’m by myself because we’re short-staffed,” she says.

Hennepin Healthcare Pediatrician Hannah Lichtsinn says a lot of that anxiety comes from the fact that kids have very little, if any, control over their lives.