Battle buddies: Local doctors, nurses look out for each other during coronavirus pandemic

ORLANDO, Fla. — Local Central Florida doctors and nurses are working tirelessly to keep up with COVID-19 demands and they know more cases will be heading into the emergency room.

“This is a really unique situation where it’s not like being deployed to help out in a disaster situation we are really here living as members of the community,” said Dr. Mansfield

Mansfield said doctors are coming up with a buddy system to look out for their coworkers and lean on each other.

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They call it “battle buddies.”

“We are trying to identify battle buddies so colleagues that will call us out if they see us in a difficult situation and we would call out if we think they need to have some rest,” said Mansfield.

While Mansfield said they are bracing themselves for more positive COVID-19 cases, they want to make it clear that they are seeing recovery.

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“What we also should be reporting on are the patients who do end up on a ventilator and who are ultimately able to be wean off the ventilator, and then who are ultimately discharged home and we have plenty of those stories of success here in Florida and also throughout the country,” Mansfield said.

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