Just Another Face in the Crowd?

       Countless numbers of songs, movies, and books have been written regarding the transformation some individuals experience when they leap from relative obscurity to notoriety: "Until her book became a best seller, she was just another face in the crowd" (or, in Eminem's case, expressed in more 'colorful' language). Most of us can relate, not necessarily to being well known but the fear of being 'lesser known'. Consider, for example, an initial conversation I had recently with an octogenarian, which started with, "Part of my fear over leaving this world, is that people will quickly forget me, that I will be just another face in the crowd."

       As the number of COVID cases accumulated into the hundreds of thousands, an emergent mantra included "...each individual being treated or lost...." and other such attempts to track the value of each individual's case or identity in the presence of such a massive number. There have been creative and otherwise dramatic attempts to display names in such a way to draw our attention to each and every individual (I remember seeing the Vietnam Memorial for the first time and came away with the impression of a 'poignant panorama' where each name, while a blur, could also be experienced up close and personal).

       What I can assure you, from my familiarity with a legion of health care workers, is that regardless of age, background, or mode of acquiring COVID, each patient gets treated by these professionals as if we were one of their own. This is reflected in the agony they have experienced, forced into triaging so many patients at a pace that has had little precedent (in having to decide who gets the much needed ventilator in a time of scarceness, for example). Agony they experience during and after treating these patients. Adding to this anguish is the frequency with which health care workers (especially nurses) find themselves as surrogate family members, given the precautions hospitals have had to enforce, precluding loved ones from being present, except at the very end of life in the saddest of cases. Referring to them as surrogates hardly does them justice, as many recovered patients testify that they experienced such intimacy as if they were being cared for by their own. 

       So, whether we are referred to by our given name or 'Patient 91', we are NOT just another face in the crowd. The face of each caregiver, while shrouded, reaffirms this truth.