One Doctor's Account of Long-term Care in the COVID Era

The pandemic thrust the little-known world of long-term care (LTC) facilities into the headlines. About one third of coronavirus deaths nationwide occurred among LTC residents, who are far more likely to die from an infection than others. Staff, too, were affected. Over the winter, as COVID-19 ripped through nursing homes across the nation, medical directors like Christian Bergman, MD, were faced with the need to prevent infection, protect residents and staff, and maintain the quality of care under trying conditions.

Dr Christian Bergman

Bergman is also an assistant professor in the division of geriatric medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University. As an academic, he researches care coordination, transitions in care, and related subjects; as an administrator at an LTC facility, he coordinates and oversees a medical staff caring for complex and vulnerable nursing home residents; as a doctor, he sees those patients as a primary care physician.

As Bergman and his coworkers cope with burnout, the virus lingers and daily life is still not back to normal. A February CDC reportsuggests that roughly 78% of LTC residents nationwide have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, but uptake among staff has been more modest. Bergman gave Medscape a look into the daily demands of his work, chronicling parts of the past 5 months.