Lauren Munter '19 BSN, RN

Lauren Munter ’19 BSN, RN

Staff nurse, Shock Trauma Hospital, Multi-Trauma Intermediate Care Unit
University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore, MD

April 3, 2020

Joelle (classmate Joelle Jaicks ’19 BSN) and I are both at University of Maryland Shock Trauma in Baltimore. We are on the multi-trauma intermediate care unit (basically between ICU and med-surg level of care). Our sister unit (the multi-trauma ICU) is the first priority for PUIs; and the unit above us is the Biocontainment unit.

Interestingly, our census for the hospital (that usually houses up to 120 patients) has only been between 60-70 for the last few weeks. This leads me to believe that social distancing and staying home is helping to decrease the amount of traumatic injuries (gunshots, stabs, falls, car and motorcycle accidents, you get the gist) happening in Baltimore and the state of Maryland.

Even so, we are being cross trained with the ICU nurses and practicing our donning and doffing just in case we are pushed to stable vents and drips if the ICU becomes overwhelmed with potential or positive COVID patients.

We have also had a few patients who tested negatively for COVID but are on contact/droplet precautions for 7 days after the test results (per CDC recommendations). There’s still a lot going on and things are changing every day, but we also just adopted universal PPE! I have attached what we are wearing. We have to wear (and reuse) our masks at all times, but only are wearing the shields in patient rooms.