Yeah... One of the biggest problems with our hospital was keeping providers healthy. A lot of people got COVID several times in a fairly short timespan and ended up having a lot of long term complications. We are attached to a college and are a large teaching hospital, so a lot of our attendees/educators tend to be older than your average physician.

A lot of people do not realize how many pillars of education we ended up losing because of COVID. Just in my department we had several attendees retire just after COVID, and had a few pass during or shortly after. One of the hardest to cope with was an older gentleman who was one of the first PAs to be licensed in our state. He ended up having to be ventilated, was lucky enough to survive, but now needed to carry around an oxygen machine to do basic tasks. That kind of experience you gain from being around since the inception of a field of study is just irreplaceable.

The sad thing is I work in orthopedics and rehabilitation, so we weren't nearly as affected when compared to others. The only reason we were really exposed is because things got so bad anyone who wasn't currently sick was being enlisted to help out on the COVID floors. For about a 3 week period during the peak in our state the hospital was offering overtime rates to general staff to work the floors under licensed supervision.

Still makes me angry that people refused to wear masks, or still deny that it was a big deal. We'll yeah, you got to stay home and learn to cook sourdough while some of the best people I've ever met were risking their lives to save your idiot uncle.