Michael Somekh on the day of his discharge with his daughters, Skylar and Sloane. He received a long, loud “clap out” from dozens of SBMC doctors, nurses and staff. BELOW: Michael’s friends donated numerous meals for SBMC healthcare providers as thanks for their heroic work.
‘ONE MINUTE AT A TIME’ WITH TEAMWORK AND TENACITY, CRITICAL CARE SPECIALISTS AT SAINT BARNABAS MEDICAL CENTER SAVED A COVID-19 PATIENT’S LIFE.
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n March 18, Livingston resident Michael Somekh, 52, went to the Emergency Department at Saint Barnabas Medical Center (SBMC). He had what he thought was a very bad cold or the flu. As it turned out, Michael was one of the first COVID-19 patients at SBMC, and he had one of the most severe cases doctors there saw. As a result of the intensive efforts of the
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multidiscplinary critical care team at SBMC, however, he made it through. On May 22, he was released from SBMC to rehabilitation. “Neither Michael nor any of the survivors, and there were many, could have done as well as they did were it not for everyone on our healthcare team working together,” says critical care physician Paul Yodice, MD, Chairman of Medicine and Director of Clinical Excellence and Effectiveness at SBMC. “We were focused on one goal, and that was getting people back home with their families where they belonged.”
A MOVING TARGET In mid-March, doctors around the world were reaching out to each other to try to figure out treatments for this new viral threat.
As a first step, Michael was given antibiotics in case he had a bacterial infection. He was tested for COVID-19, and while test results were pending, he was given hydroxychloroquine, the only management for COVID-19 doctors had at the time. But Michael’s condition deteriorated rapidly. Within two days, he was on life support. “His blood pressure was falling so fast that he was in shock,” Dr. Yodice recalls. “He needed a special kind of ventilator reserved only for the most hypoxic [oxygendeficient] patients. We had to put him in a medication-induced coma.” Michael got bacterial pneumonia. His kidneys were barely functional. He developed what’s known as a “cytokine
Summer 2020
7/29/20 3:07 PM
