Feature Story

Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons, Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine specialist at Cottage Hospital

Let’s get real – what do you need to know now? Talking COVID-19, the pandemic, local life, and help. We had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons, the Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine specialist at Cottage Hospital, whose Cottage Grand Rounds Doctor to Doctor video has gone viral locally. Dr. Fitzgibbons and the video are remarkable. Watch it and you’ll come away with a greater understanding of the mechanisms of the disease and the situation we

find ourselves from a highly respected local expert at our own Cottage Hospital that cuts through the clutter of the news and social media. The video is available at the Cottage Hospital Website: https://www.cot tagehealth.org/covid-19-video/

Dr. Fitzgibbons’ video is an up-to-the-minute analysis that covers everything from the biology of the coronavirus micro-organism to China’s protocols for diagnosis and how the Ebola Crisis informs our current situation, as well as the crucial

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role hospitals will play. Most importantly she’s in the very thick of what we are likely to see in Santa Barbara, all while somehow managing to keep her sense of optimism, humor, and remarkable calm.

Q: Where are we now? Dr. Fitzgibbons: We’re seeing an encouraging increase in testing locally, particularly over the last five to seven days. We now know that there are at least one to two patients with this infection in Santa Barbara County. We, the infectious disease physicians, really feel that it’s likely circulating in our community. We are reassured that there has been an increase in testing, although not to the point we would desire. The most reassuring aspect of the local situation today is that inside the hospital we are not yet seeing an explosion or even much of an increase in patients admitted with unusual pneumonia, respiratory failure, or other severe viral syndromes.

Unfortunately, with the pandemic and its evolution elsewhere, we have seen significant public concern, which is very understandable, but this has led to a stress on our emergency services. Our emergency room is working incredibly hard to take care of as many patients as they possibly can, but they’re encouraging people who are not in need of urgent emergency care to start with their primary care provider.

We’ve all heard there are no tests. So where are these testing options coming from?

Our regional public health labs have been very helpful in getting tests for our highest priority cases. However, the volume needed to really test the community at large has led to the use of commercial labs whereby samples are sent to different parts of the state or even different parts of the country with a turnaround time of perhaps four to six days. Even the commercial labs are struggling with huge volumes from around the country so turnaround could increase or stay stable. Many local clinics, including Sansum Clinic and the Neighborhood

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