Former NFL player turned doctor fighting coronavirus on the frontlines
Former Tennessee Titan Dr. Myron Rolle, a neurosurgery resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, tells 'Fox & Friends' what he's seeing on the frontlines.
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While it is a "difficult" and "bad" time both for hospitals and patients strained under the surge of of coronavirus (COVID-19) patients, America can make it past this virus by working together, former NFL player-turned-neurosurgeon Myron Rolle said Tuesday.
In an interview on "Fox & Friends," Rolle, who is working on the front lines at Massachusetts General Hospital, said he had first started to understand the gravity of the situation in his medical center about two or three weeks ago because of the "staggering" influx of patients with either COVID-19 symptoms or positive tests.
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"And, I noticed our hospital started to adjust and change policies based on this number to try to mitigate and handle and manage these patients," he remarked. "It affected even our neurosurgical department in a way where our neurosurgical floor has now been transformed into a COVID-19 patient-only floor. So, I started to notice it then and people started to get on high alert and try to activate as best as possible."
The former Tennessee Titan said that his department has had to tell many of the patients who have had surgeries scheduled for months that their appointments are being postponed based on the pressing need to deal with coronavirus infections.
"And, if we have to be activated as neurosurgery doctors to either take care of these COVID patients or transform our...ORs (Operating Rooms) into ICUs (Intensive Care Units), then we do to it and that's the call," he remarked.
Rolle said that while his hospital is "taxed and strained and stretched with resources," they are "dealing with it."
But, he has a message to the public.
"Adhere to what health care professionals and the politicians are saying right now which is, you know, to have lifestyle behavior modification. Stay at home. Physical distance right now. Do your part. Play and active role," he pleaded.
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Rolle said he knows that sometimes young people feel impervious to health threats. He mentors young student-athletes at his alma mater Florida State University.
"But, we have to understand that there is a buy-in that needs to happen, a collective buy-in from everyone, to sort of flatten this curve, slow it down, give these epidemiologists, and nurses, scientists, doctors, physicians, pharmacists -- all these people time to mitigate, find therapies, find vaccinations, find ways for us to get over this," he urged.
"Because we will. I'm optimistic that we can."