Several months after the COVID-19 outbreak, the medical community is making efforts to handle the pandemic. Intense shifts and the possibility of getting infected are now common factors in any medical worker and hospital staff’s life. It is crucial to understand the impact of the virus, not only in our current lives but in the future as well. In today’s episode, Dr. Rosie Sendher and Makenna Rice sit down with Dr. Margaret McLean and Dr. Faisal Mirza, two bright health care experts, to discuss the impacts of COVID-19 in the medical field and our society.

Dr. Margaret McLean, Ph.D. is the associate director and director of bioethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. A senior lecturer in religious studies and affiliate faculty in bioengineering, she teaches courses on ethics including health care and biotechnology. 

Dr. Faisal Mirza is the founder and president of OrthoSynthesis Inc. He is an experienced orthopedic surgeon, who specializes in joint replacement, shoulder reconstruction, arthroscopy, sports medicine, and fracture care.

In this episode we chat about:

  • (02:20) - Do we need pandemic protocols for the future? — “You can't control the hurricane, it's about managing, making protocols and policies.”
  • (07:40) - The unknown medical consequences — “I’m concerned that we don't have full transparency from our country and that’s scary.”
  • (12:13) - The importance of preparedness and ethics with our government — “How to determine who gets treated and doesn’t?.”
  • (23:27) - The insensitiveness on developing vaccines — “This may have a positive impact and they are going to provide an inversion on working on this.”
  • (27:04) - The most vulnerable population in the health crisis — “This affects minority people and is mismanaged for the country’s Hispanic and Black communities, it's hard to ignore it.”
  • (28:31) - Priority check: focusing on food instead of oil — “People are losing access to food, and there is food rotting in the farms from another country.”
  • (40:02) - On the frequency of colds and the importance of what we are experiencing now — “We are at the same spot like the common cold, there is not much science to confront the cold.”
  • (46:13) - All hospital workers should be tested, but what about normal people? — “The bottleneck is resource limitation, so how far should you be testing?.”
  • (49:20) - On the possible test certifications for going back to work — “Certain communities will ask for a certification to return or go to a place.”
  • (54:00) - The immune passport: a controversial topic — “There are certain community members that are showing up in guns that feel they are being targeted to help another class of community.”
  • (57:34) - How hospital activity is starting to normalize — “The most amazing part of this adventure is that we are being forced to seek on how to rebuild our health community.”
  • (01:02:16) - How technology has merged with health care to help patients — “Robots are the other new technology that is going to help by having a machine that can be used remotely for virtual surgery”.
  • (01:12:56) - Final thoughts — “We can't go to work if we are sick, if we are not at work the economy suffers, the economy suffers, and then we are not able to go to work because the jobs are gone.”

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