Just a "simple" doctor

COVID-19 has forced us to face situations for which we were not prepared. As a consequence of the current pandemic, we all have had to change our daily routines.

We have changed from practically being with one another to being under a strict lockdown within just four walls. It is a difficult experience for humans. Although everything feels strange and it’s easy to be fearful, I’m learning new ways to be patient.

However, the experience that my father is going through in his professional career is being much more difficult. For my father life has changed perhaps even more dramatically. As a doctor, he says he would have never imagined living something like this disease. He is doing his best,  both with the sick patients and along with us, his close family.

Although he always tried not to bring home his work problems, unfortunately it has been quite the opposite. He tells me everything about his job. The family environment is now his great and unconditional support.

It’s not the fear of a contagion that scares him the most, it’s rather the possible repercussions on my mother, on myself but most importantly on my grandmother, who is the most vulnerable of all of us. My grandmother is 82 years old, she’s healthy, but maybe she wouldn’t make it out alive from an intensive healthcare treatment.

He is on the front line of this pandemic, and he’ll be for a long while. He’s giving everything day after day, fighting against this invisible enemy, with few means but with great will. Undoubtedly, he’s giving me a great life lesson.

The personal sacrifices made by my father are saving countless lives. He is capable of staying optimistic to help keep the health care workforce as well as his patients healthy. As a health care worker, he knows the enormity of what is ahead of him.

I admire his positive mood during this time of uncertainty, especially in the front lines of this strange challenge he is facing with the lack of basic protective equipment or just the absence of medical supplies. I know he is risking his own health while he assists his sick patients.

I’m also impressed that not even a single time he has complained about his exhaustion or overwork. He has modelled a sense of hope and positivity and he is able to project as much calm as possible.

Thinking about him, I get to forget about my own situation. This lack of freedom for me now is not the most important. I look up to him and I take my hat off to him.