This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies and today for Terry Gross. In January of 2020, when the COVID

pandemic was just appearing in news stories, Thomas Fisher says he knew the onslaught was inevitable

and he expected to be infected before it was over. Thomas is an emergency room doctor at the

University of Chicago Medical Center and his new memoir Chronicles His Experiences in the

First Year of the COVID Crisis, struggling to stay safe while doing his best for patients. Thomas

has been an emergency medicine for two decades and he writes that he's made it his life's mission

to care for his people, the black population of Chicago's south side. His book describes his

frustration with a healthcare system that leaves him too little time and too few resources to

meet all his patient's needs and he writes about ways his patient's health is undermined by the

world they live in. One of relentless gun violence and enduring impacts from racist practices,

such as redlining, employment discrimination, inequities in city services and police brutality.

Besides his work in the emergency room, Fisher's career includes time as a private insurance

company executive and president of a managed care company. He holds a master's degree in public

health from Harvard and he spent a year in the Obama administration as a White House fellow for

the Department of Health and Human Services working on regulations for the Affordable Care Act

and on the department's action plan for reducing racial and ethnic health disparities.

Fisher's new book is The Emergency, a year of healing and heartbreak in Chicago ER.

Well, Thomas Fisher, welcome to Fresh Air. You write that in January of 2020. You knew

that COVID was coming and it was going to get to your emergency room and you say no matter how

you prepare you expected to be infected eventually. What preparations did you make for working in this

period? What a crazy time that was I made all kinds of plans from financial plans to plans that

would help to keep my family safe like compiling what I thought might be appropriate PPE. I had no

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