My father was diagnosed with COVID-19 sometime in March, a few days before New Jersey pulled me, and all third-year medical students, from the hospitals. He is a physician in a pediatric emergency department in the Bronx, so I was not surprised when I heard the news that he had a fever.

The frantic calls from my mother began a few days after he tested positive.

“He is not getting out of bed. He won’t shower.”

The next day, “He hasn’t eaten.”

Then, “He’s not talking to anyone in the house.”

His cough was loud, wet and came from deep within his chest, shaking my parents’ old house. Or, as my mom stated multiple times, “just terrible.”

His fever persisted.

This continued for weeks while I was completing my third-year clerkships online.

Medical students had quickly been ripped from the clinical environment that we had earned after successfully completing two years of medical school and board examinations. It seemed as though I was back in my first-year, listening to countless lectures and seeing only small glimpses of patient care through my webcam. Commenting about this remote, telemedicine experience seemed silly and selfish when people were so sick. I had never felt this useless as a medical student.

Living two hours away from my parents, there was not much I felt I could do for my father either. I facetimed with him multiple times a day, to check in and see how he was doing. His responses varied; some days he was “okay” other days “still alive.”

It was strange to see him over Facetime while he was sick. At baseline, my dad rarely called or answered the phone unless you absolutely needed him. When you could get a hold of him, it was a celebration and he always knew the right things to say to make everyone smile. The few of my friends who were lucky enough to meet him in passing viewed him as a serious man. At home, however, he was goofy—always dancing or clowning around with a hysterical laugh that could be heard down the street if the windows were left open. But now, with his bearded face pressed sideways into his pillow, he would barely speak, let alone smile or laugh. This facetime view of my father presented a shell of who he was. It was terrifying.

The logical part of me knew there was a high likelihood that my father would recover. As a medical student, however, I was hyperaware of his comorbidities. I waited in fear for the impending respiratory failure or general chaos that would ensue if my father were to need admission to a NJ/NY hospital.

One day, he told me that the next time I called I should prepare to take note of his important passwords, phone numbers, and accounts. I was his oldest child and this would be my responsibility.

We were nearing the end.

---

May 27, 2020

Last night, I read the news about George Floyd. An unarmed Black man, who cried out that he could not breathe prior to his violent death. Another. Unarmed. Black man.

Trayvon Martin.

Ahmaud Arbery.

Eric Garner.

Freddie Gray.

Botham Jean.

Jordan Davis.

Emmet Till.

The list goes on and on…and on.

I am devasted. I am furious. I am exhausted.

My father is a man of color. So is my baby brother. This feeling, the pit inside my stomach and throat, is different from the concerns I have about COVID-19. It is fierce, stronger, tearing at my insides making it hard for me to catch my breath.

I don’t know if should scream or cry.

May 29^th, 2020

A few days have passed, and I feel like I can think again.

My father, thankfully, has recovered from COVID and is back on the frontlines. I want to be there with him and, as a rising fourth-year medical student, I am so close.

My feelings about my father being a physician in America are complex and difficult to express. He is a man who has dedicated over twenty years to serving pediatric patients in New York City—not only as a primary care provider, but also as a pediatric emergency medicine physician; two full time, essential jobs. I am convinced he never sleeps. My dad truly is a superhero, and he has learned to gracefully deflect the micro and macroaggressions that come with being Black in this country. As his daughter, I have not yet mastered this skill and am especially unsettled when I witness how others in the world interact with him.

The slights are sometimes subtle, looks of surprise when it is made known that my father is a physician. Sometimes less subtle, like a Honda salesman blatantly asking if my father can afford the price of their cars; or a flight attendant directing him to the back of the basic economy line without bothering to look at his plane ticket. Sometimes they are as aggressive as an officer pulling us over just to ask if my father is driving his own vehicle.

I recognize that nobody will ever see my father as I do. Few have the privilege to know about his journey to this country, or his deep love for family and passion for medicine. He is not perfect, and I am sure my entire family would love to see him more often. But my dad has somehow managed to dedicate absurd hours to patient care and still make it to my white coat ceremony. He is a superhuman. And still, I question if his life is valued in America.

We are in the midst of a pandemic. Death from coronavirus is rampant and we have had major disruptions to our normal way of life. This is not an excuse, however, to neglect the preexisting epidemic that has overwhelmed this country for years. This epidemic, injustice and violence towards Black men in the United States, is unlike any virus. This is not something that a human body can naturally fight off alone or simply recover from with time. We cannot ignore it. We cannot deny it. We cannot forget the value of a human life. Our Black brothers and sisters constantly live in fear that they will not make it to tomorrow, and it is not because of COVID-19.

When you couple these issues, systemic racism and the current state of coronavirus, the pair have proven to be even more lethal. In New York City alone the COVID-19 mortality rates of people of color are more than double the mortality rates of Caucasian counterparts.

My emotions on this subject course deep throughout my body. Behind my gloves and mask, the only things free are my skeptical, angry, and disappointed eyes. At age twenty-five, what am I to do with all of this rage? Where can I put all these feelings?

I implore you, if you are still reading, to take a moment to question the racial injustice that continues to occur in this country. Hear our cries.

If you are fortunate enough to have the choice on whether this will affect you today, choose to let it.

Discuss this matter. Educate yourself. Try to understand.

Try to feel how this obvious, disproportionate violence affects your family, friends, brothers and sisters, neighbors, patients, and colleagues of color—not just when there is a jarring act of violence shown on the news, but every single day.  

Please do not stay silent.

I am exhausted. This is just too much.

Brenda Arthur is a current medical student at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. She is pursuing a career in emergency medicine.

Header Image by Julie Muchinyi