The Sky Was Falling — Stories from a COVID Diary | Cornelia Griggs, MD

The Doctor's Art

Henry Bair and Tyler Johnson

Medicine, Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Philosophy

5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2024

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In spring of 2020, Cornelia Griggs, MD was finishing her nearly decade-long training to become a pediatric surgeon in New York City, when COVID-19 struck and life fell apart. The hospital was flooded with mysteriously sick patients for whom no known treatments existed, basic supplies disappeared from shelves, and each day at work took on an existential burden as she wondered if this would be the day she caught the deadly disease herself.

Dr. Griggs describes these dramatic stories from the early days of the pandemic in her 2024 memoir, The Sky Was Falling. Today, she is a triple board-certified pediatric surgeon, having completed medical school and pediatric surgery fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center, and her adult general surgery residency and surgical critical care fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she currently practices.

Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Griggs describes the course of her challenging training in medicine, why it takes “a little crazy” to succeed as a surgeon, harrowing moments that defined heroism amid the throes of the pandemic, how she continued working even when giving up was the easy option, and more.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:26 - What initially drew Dr. Griggs into the field of medicine and to the speciality of pediatric surgery

14:35 - Why the operating room is a “safe space” for Dr. Griggs

19:36 - The sense of alarm that Dr. Griggs experienced in the early days of the pandemic that drove her to write her viral New York Times op-ed, The Sky is Falling

28:26 - How Dr. Griggs fell into an “investigative reporter” headspace as the pandemic raged around her in New York City

30:26 - The sense of fear that enveloped both patients and the medical community during the first months of the pandemic

40:27 - A moment during the early pandemic when Dr. Griggs seriously considered leaving the city and her post in the hospital

46:30 - How ICU nurses brought dignity and humanity when tending to seriously ill COVID-19 patients

51:16 - The hopefulness Dr. Griggs carries in seeing the large number of people who have entered medicine since the pandemic

Dr. Cornelia Griggs can be found on Twitter/X at @CorneliaLG.

Dr. Griggs is the author ofThe Sky Was Falling (2024).

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Henry Bear.
0:03.0	And I'm Tyler Johnson.
0:05.0	And you're listening to The Doctors Art, a podcast that explores meaning in medicine.
0:09.0	Throughout our medical training and career, we have pondered.
0:13.2	What makes medicine meaningful?
0:15.1	Can a stronger understanding of this meaning create better doctors?
0:18.8	How can we build health care institutions that nurture the doctor-patient connection.
0:23.0	What can we learn about the human condition
0:24.8	from accompanying our patients in times of suffering?
0:28.0	In seeking answers to these questions,
0:30.0	we meet with deep thinkers working across health care,
0:33.0	from doctors and nurses to patients and health care
0:35.4	executives, those who have collected a career's worth of hard-earned wisdom.
0:40.1	Probing the moral heart that beats at the core of medicine, we will hear stories that are by turns heart-breaking, amusing, inspiring, challenging, and enlightening.
0:49.0	We welcome anyone curious about why doctors do what they do,
0:52.8	join us as we think out loud about what illness and healing
0:56.2	can teach us about some of life's biggest questions.
1:02.3	In spring of 2020, Dr. Cornelia Griggs was at the end of her nearly decade-long training
1:07.7	to become a pediatric surgeon working in New York City when COVID-19 struck and life fell apart.
1:15.8	The hospital was flooded with mysteriously sick patients for whom no known treatments existed.
1:22.2	Basic supplies disappeared from shelves and each day at work took
1:26.1	on an existential burden as you wondered if this would be the day you caught the deadly disease yourself.
	...

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