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Pandemic Stories

We have all been living through a historic pandemic! It has been a year of challenges and changes. Even though CBIC is not able to hold our CIC reception at the APIC conference, we are glad to honor you and your work. You are amazing, and showing up every day to protect your patients, residents, and healthcare personnel was and is a tremendous feat!

Thank you to all CICs, a-IPCs, and interested candidates for sharing your stories, your honest and real pandemic struggles and successes. Please take the time to read each story to learn why being certified was so important during these unprecedented times or how it inspired individuals to become certified in the future. APIC put together a video montage to show their appreciation for IPs as well.

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Ajish K. Thankachan, ICP, CIC

We emphasize on team work and collaboration with other key members, also examine their work processes to streamline care without sacrificing quality and also ensure PPE and pandemic-related supplies are available and used appropriately.

Akef Mohammad Al Khattab

When did I feel that I was stuck in corona, in fact, at the beginning of the pandemic, there was some disturbance. Is this disease real or fiction? Is it natural or factory?

Anum Sattar, CIC

The COVID-19 pandemic that swept rapidly around the world over the year created challenges for all of us. As ICP my responsibility not only to protect the spread of infection among patients, visitors as well as in health care workers.

Benjamin Galvan, MLS(ASCP), CIC

I remember the moment I first read that there was a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China and saying out loud “uh oh… that’s not good.”

Brenda Ehlert, CIC

The greatest challenge this past year for myself was keeping the Infection Preventionists in our organization intact; physically, mentally and emotionally.

Cynthia Kaplan, CIC, MPH, BSN, RN

These times are challenging. They can bring the best and the worst out in people. When it comes to our hospital though, I can truly say I’ve seen the best. I’m a Nurse Epidemiologist, so one can imagine the amount of added work our team has had to embrace.

Darla Silavent, RN, MSN, CIC

Greatest challenge was educating and communicating the dire warnings of the illness. Our area did not experience the influx and death toll until August 2020. Despite the national coverage and continuous information shared by all media, there were staff without complete buy in.

Darlene Gallagher, BSN, RN, CIC

I was on call on Sunday, February 9th, my pager was non-stop with calls about symptomatic people coming to the hospital. Several challenges arose based on the changing information from the CDC

Deborah White, BSN, RN-BC, CIC

We began this Pandemic running drills with our hospital leaders. Our CMO allowed IP to lead the drills on behalf of our Emergency Management Committee. We used a standardized drill audit tool to be performed in all inpatient and outpatient departments.

Dr. Raksha K, MD, PGDMLE, PDHHM, CIC

We overcome this by getting a task force with designated roles in the hospital. Dissipating the right information periodically and monitoring compliance are our key tasks. My greatest success was bringing Microbiology & Infectious Diseases in the forefront.

Emily Shah, CIC

Emily mumbles incoherently as she gets up at 5:00am. She turns off her buzzing alarm and grabs the baby monitor under her pillow, slipping out of bed without waking her husband who is tired from being on call the night before.

Emily Timkang Quijano, RN, MSN, CIC

It was December 2019, when everyone was thrilled as the most wonderful time of the year, Christmas season, was fast-approaching. But the world had to face one of its most struggling challenges, the COVID19 pandemic

Francine Paquette, CIC

Before long, I was deployed into the most challenging of COVID-19 outbreaks in long term care homes, trying support the implementation of the IPAC practice at a time of sheer crisis.

Gina Murray, a-IPC

One morning in late March, I arrived to my facility, taking my time to stock my pockets with sanitizer and put on my surgical mask. When I got in, the nurse notified me that one of my patients had a cough. I didn’t think much of it.

Haifa Petro, ICP, CIC

My awareness of COVID-19 was in January 2020 when I read a brief from WHO about an emerging outbreak in China. The reports clarified that the outbreak is monitored and hopefully, it will be controlled.

Heidi Hough, BSN, CIC

In February 2020, my colleagues and I watched and read news reports waiting for the first case of the novel virus to show up in our state. The first documented case was 3/5/2020 and marked the change of my personal life and career.

Helmieh Aqel, CIC

But all of our effort in Infection Control Department success because we really worked as team and the leaders of Infection Control were very supportive and even the got ever time and rewards from administration to all of our team..

Indranath Roy, MD

I am by academic qualification, a Clinical Microbiologist but by passion I am Infection Preventionist. I shall be appearing for CIC in future.

Janet Glowicz PhD RN, CIC, FAPIC

At the time I thought, “I will know this is big if the South by Southwest music festival in Austin is cancelled,” (it was) and “I will know this is big if the Strategic National Stockpile is distributed” (it was gone in a matter of days).

Jean Barth, MPH, RN, CIC

We have not had one employee death from COVID-19. That is certainly not all attributable to IPAC, but I am certain the situation would have been worse had we not put what we did in place.

Jeannie Marie Sanborn, RN, BS, MS, CIC

COVID-19 hit. My retirement went on hold. The challenges for a small, stand-alone hospital began. Thank God for years of certification and the experience of working during other public health crises.

Jeannie Tignor, RN, CIC

The first few weeks of spring last year were a time of continuous change. Everyday there was something new that needed to be addressed. Infection Preventionist were at the forefront of every change.

Julie Russell, BSN, RN, CIC

Early in the pandemic, during our daily meetings with our COVID-19 Steering Committee, we would discuss tactics to help reinforce universal masking and frequent hand hygiene.

Kathleen Lucente, MT, RN, CIC

I am forever thankful for my IP experiences and for what this field had given me! This virus has made our world of infection prevention more resilient then ever!! Think about all we have accomplished in the last year at and half!

Lalaine Maluluyon, CIC

Finally, adapting to all the issues that this pandemic brought, would mean, appreciating the small miracles. Your small victories of problem solving.

Laura Borsa, a-IPC

The greatest success in implementing COVID-19 guidance was the trust and report that has been built with staff. Ensuring that I remain consistent and reliable has been a vital piece to the infection prevention framework.

Laura Morelli, RN, CIC

Although I just recently acquired the CIC designation, the process toward this goal pushed my knowledge of infection prevention to a new level and gave me the confidence to support our outbreak program through this pandemic.

Louella Ursua Brown, USRN, MAN, CIC

I was confident that our facility was ready to face the battle as we have in-placed policies and procedures and annual drill or exercise of sudden influx of emerging and re-emerging Infectious disease, but oh boy, I was wrong.

Maria Cristina Hucalla, RN

I am not yet certified, however with this unprecedented event, I have committed myself to certify as I study my reviewer, there are many things that I didn’t know and for my sake I have to know and find solutions to the problems which I can best do if I am certified.

Nisar Kuzhi Kandan, MSc, CIC

Our greatest challenge was to limit the spread of covid-19 in our facility by creating awareness among the healthcare workers and the patients, about the virus, its spread, precautionary measures etc.

Pamela Douglas, MSN, RN, CIC

Without the background of certification, I don’t believe I would have been ready to be a leader in the prevention of this virus in our facility. My certification taught me how to research, how to evaluate evidence, and how to implement actions in a timely manner.

Reham Assem Mohamed Elashri, MBBS, CIC, CPHQ

My CIC certification prepared me to face the challenges by increasing my skills, information, attitude, experiences. Training me to analyze, apply, recall any information & scientifically thinking.

Rejin Chandran R, RN, CIC

One of the achievements was to spread the knowledge and importance of Infection Prevention and Control to everyone and the whole world to start recognizing the importance of an Infection Preventionist.

Rene Tellier-Johnson, RN, CCRN-K, CIC

Feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders all the while dealing with frustrated employees and providers as guidance changed faster than we could keep up with took a physical and mental toll beyond words.

Rose Serrano Torres, MPH, MT

I've been always a science geek, a public health advocate and I am proud to say that perhaps I am not certified yet and having an unusual background outside nursing and direct patient care , this pandemic made me an IP without knowing it.

Ruth Sutherland, RN, CIC

I still wake up every day and come to work with a glad heart, thankful to be healthy, to have a job, and provide support to the frontline workers as I am part of their teams now. It is the little thanks I get from staff that keeps me going and keeps me renewed!

Sali Mohamed Barr, CIC, BSN, RN

The strength of my professional certification CBIC is that I feel more satisfied & refine my skills through my 10 years of experience in infection prevention& control with commitment to best practices.

Shahbaz Salehi, MD, MPH

This is a significant accomplishment for my team and me because we wanted to keep our resident population safe while providing them with the care they need.

Shazia Irum, RN, BSC, MSC, MBA, CIC

At first, things were not much clear, however with the support of maximum available literature, my CIC knowledge, competencies helped me in an abundant way to deal with this disputed situation.

Stephanie DiGiovanni, CIC

COVID-19 left a footprint on us, it changed the IPC world and we are still navigating our way through that change. However, we became stronger and more united as a system.

Suraiya Jahan, MD, CIC

I chose to contribute my offer in afternoon schedule. I left my house because my immune compromised child and my father who is 82 years old. I was staying in the COVID Hotel -no food at the beginning April. Scary sound of Siren got strike frequently.

Syed Abdul Bari, MD, CIC

The existing infrastructure and the collective teamwork of medical administration, heads of individual departments, Engineering controls and housekeeping played a significant role in prevention of Covid-19 infections in patients and healthcare staff.

Terri Roberts, BSN, RN, CIC, FAPIC

It was a very hard and very, very sad time last spring and as I reflect, I know I made a difference. I did a lot of infection prevention teaching, I helped get PPE to facilities that were in need, and sometimes I was a shoulder to cry on and that’s OK

Therese Mirisola, RN, MSN, CIC

The resilience that it takes to continue this level of work, day in and day out, for so long has been the biggest learning for me. What we all do is important, hard, emotional and so critical to our organizations and our communities. I am so thankful to be a part of it!

Tiffany Rock, BScN, RN, CIC

That’s when it hit me. If paramedics, the ones who go head on into everything, if they are wearing what they are supposed to be wearing to protect themselves, then we are in big trouble.

Travis Bong, MLS, BSN, RN, CIC

I recall being part of a mock-drill at my facility in early March that would follow a patient coming into our ED and then being admitted to the ICU. The day prior to the mock-drill an actual suspected COVID patient came to our ED.

Wilma Abubakar, US RN, MSc.HM, CIC

When we heard the news about the Wuhan virus affecting a lot of Chinese people, the UAE government public health experts started to do their research and shared information to all health care industries.

Yamunadevi Ramanathan Sr., DA, MD, CIC

That was the day when the thought struck our minds “Distance shouldn’t matter because at the end of the day we are all under the same sky’’.

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