Calgary ER doctor says documenting the pandemic in photos keeps her going in 4th wave

Calgary emergency room physician Dr. Heather Patterson says she's not sure how she'd be coping today — in the throes of a fourth wave, exhausted from treating record numbers of patients or, worse yet, watching them die from COVID-19 — if it weren't for the endless hours spent carrying a camera rather than a stethoscope around her neck since last November.

The fourth wave has taken a toll on health-care workers as it's pushed ICU admissions beyond normal capacity.

"It's been a heavy burden to carry because I feel like I'm witnessing just a higher density of tragedy," Patterson says.

"But as a photographer, I'm able to follow people along and see the true longitudinal progression of what they're experiencing in hospital and the joy of seeing people go home and celebrate being reunited with their family — that's what keeps me going." 

Patterson says the photography project, approved by Alberta Health Services, emerged after an extremely tough shift in emergency. It included losing a patient who she thought would survive, and giving a terminal diagnosis to a 50-year-old.

After she got home, she and her husband, who is also an emergency room doctor, debriefed the trauma she had witnessed. They decided she needed to find a way to slow down and look for all the good things on the job she'd loved for 10 years.

Patterson says that when she first launched the project, she focused her attention on front-line staff and the care they were providing to COVID patients. She says she wanted to showcase the good work that was being done behind closed doors.