ICU pharmacist: It is “heart disease” to see the suffering of COVID-19 patients

As a specialist in critical care clinical pharmacy Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville In Florida, Amanda Yasin works closely with doctors and other clinicians who treat COVID-19 patients.

Unlike Pharmacist in your neighborhoodBehind the counters of supermarkets and drugstores, Yashin meets with doctors, nurses, nurses and other healthcare providers who treat COVID-19 patients. Yacin will participate in the clinician’s evaluation of such patients.

“I make recommendations for medications and help educate (other members of the clinical team) what they need to know about medications. How they interact with each other.” She says.

[Read: Unsung Heroes Fight the COVID-19 Pandemic.]

For patients with COVID-19 who require oxygenation to breathe, including those on ventilators, Yasin usually advises doctors to prescribe the corticosteroid dexamethasone. People’s immune system Serious respiratory problems caused by COVID-19 It can lead to overactivity. Dexamethasone helps manage the response and suppresses potentially fatal inflammation.

Dexamethasone may help some patients, but is far from treating COVID-19. Researchers have conducted hundreds of clinical trials to develop safe and effective treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, but current treatment options are limited.

Research suggests that the drug lemdecivir may benefit some COVID-19 patients. A preliminary report, published in May in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests that median recovery time for individuals with COVID-19 could be shortened from 15 to 11 days.

Based on her experience and research, Yassin says remdesivir may not be a good option for people in a condition severe enough to enter the ICU. According to a meta-analysis published in the Infectious Diseases and Therapy magazine in July, “current data further advance to high-flow oxygen or non-invasive or invasive mechanical ventilation and illnesses requiring alternative treatments. No indication of patient benefit. For these patients, the options need to be evaluated further.”

According to Yasin, it’s not that he never recommends lemdesibir to patients with ICU. Frequently the question “Is there anything else I can do?” If lemdecivir is the only treatment we have left that we haven’t tried yet, and it doesn’t harm the patient, we’ll assume that we have it and we’ll try it She says. Rendescivir can be harmful to people with certain conditions, such as liver disease.

Except for dexamethasone for patients who need help getting oxygen, Yacin does not have many proven treatment options for COVID-19 patients in ICU.

[Read: Speech-Language Pathologists Join the COVID-19 Front Lines.]

Researchers at the Baptist Medical Center are researching several drugs. These drugs are so new that they have no name yet. The team can ask patients with COVID-19 if they may try medication as part of a clinical trial. Although some patients in these studies receive the drug under test, members of the control group receive placebo, so there is no guarantee that patients who agree to participate in the study will receive the new drug.

Providing limited treatment options for patients with COVID-19 can be frustrating for her and her colleague’s ICU clinician, Yassin said.

“I think many of us are very helpless,” says Yasin. “It’s like I’ve never experienced it. I feel a lot of sympathy for a patient who is blind to the family (COVID-19). You see someone die slowly, and you do it for them. Nothing is sadder than knowing that nothing can be done to you. Sometimes it just reaches you.”

Yashin, 38, lives in Jacksonville. she is Critical care Detour specialist in clinical pharmacy.

At the age of 16, Yasin began working as a DJ on a classic rock radio station. Years later, Yasin decided that playing rock songs was not the right career for her. One day, when she and a friend saw a picture of Yashin wearing a white coat on the pharmacist’s wall, she and a friend were in a restaurant. “My friend pointed to (pictured) and said, “You should do it,” Yasin said. “And I looked at it a bit and thought, “It may not be a bad idea.” So I decided to investigate it, and you go. ”

[Read: Mother-Daughter Nurse Team Both Treating Coronavirus Pandemic.]

She graduated from college in 2009 and received a pharmacy degree three years later. Yasin has spent two years in the hospital as a resident. The first year was a general residency and the second year was an emergency medical specialty.

The pandemic affects not only Yassin’s work life, but her personal life as well. “My mother is in her 70s and she lives in Iowa,” says Yassin. “I’m always in the ICU, so I’m around COVID-19 patients, so it’s uncomfortable to visit her, putting her at risk (being infected with the virus). It’s hard to stay away. ”

She is sometimes helpless, but tries to keep in mind that while all of the COVID-19 patients seen in the ICU suffer from the effects of terrible illness, they eventually survive and recover.

“The majority will be better,” she says. “You tend to remember people you don’t remember.”

More from US News

What are the Coronavirus Symptoms?

Corona virus protection procedures that work or not

Coronavirus myths

ICU pharmacist: It is “heart disease” to see the suffering of COVID-19 patients Originally appeared usnews.com