They traded in their Fordham baseball and softball gloves for exam gloves. They took off their Fordham football helmets and donned protective masks. Instead of passing the ball, they hand out assists of a different nature. They run to danger instead of a finish line. They used to clear the way for running back, now they clear the way for emergency vehicles. They come from different sports but the one thing the former Fordham student-athletes have in common is that they are on the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak. Doctors, nurses, policemen, EMT, firefighters, grocery store workers, they all are there when called upon, living out the Jesuit ideal of men and women for others.
 
Today we recognize former women's soccer Ram Dr. Michaela Murphy, MD, FCRH '12, a doctor in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
 
Murphy graduated from St. George's University Medical School in 2018 and is currently an ascending PGY-3 Internal Medicine Resident.  She worked in the Emergency Department for the last two weeks of March and since then has been working with critical patients in various ICUs throughout the hospital, most of which were created to hold the once dramatically increasing number of ICU patients. 
 
Working at an inner-city hospital in Brooklyn, Murphy has seen the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak up close. It's an experience she will never forget.
 
"It was a surreal feeling walking around the hallways of our hospital; our pagers going off non-stop," said Murphy. "Granted, I work in an inner city hospital, but this was something different.  We would see the words "Code 66" or "Stat Intubation" and a room number flash on our screens and we would start running, another patient's heart had stopped beating or lungs had given out.  We would immediately start compressions and methodically enter our resuscitation algorithm, this cycle would repeat maybe 15 times a day and then again during the night shift.  We were exhausted."
 
Working at a hospital in an area hard hit by the pandemic, Murphy saw many change to the facility as the crisis went on, including the a transformation to the hospital which included pediatric and psychiatry patients being diverted and operating rooms vacated.
 
"We needed more space for ventilated patients," said Murphy. "We normally have one 20 patient bed intensive care unit (ICU), but by mid-April we had created an additional eight ICUs in various locations, fixed with cardiac monitors, negative pressure ventilation and critical care nurses. At this point our hospital had well over 400 positive COVID-19 patients, with nearly 130 patients on ventilators with approximately 15 patients dying every day."
 
One of the most difficult parts of Murphy's job was the discussions with patient's families.
 
"The family discussions were brutal and heart wrenching, almost like a script," said Murphy "I would start with "I am so sorry…". One night I recall using my phone to video chat a family member of a loved one in their last moments of life, as no visitation was allowed. I noticed the heart rate slowly dropping and blood pressure decline as his family prayed, as the cardiac rhythm strip flattened, I had to let the family know it was time to start compressions, and hung up the phone. He didn't make it. We were all spread so thin, working tirelessly to maintain drip settings, trouble shooting airway codes and turning patients on their stomach as a last ditch effort to improve oxygenation and possibly save their life."
 
There was one instance when Murphy started questioning science amid the sense of total exhaustion.
 
"I remember one night, in an eight bedded ICU, three patients passed. I felt defeated. Why wasn't medicine working? Why wasn't what we had learned in the books and in training making a difference? And again the family conversations.  For one patient that had passed, it wasn't difficult to contact her loved one as he was also hospitalized and a short walk away.  With an oxygen mask on his face and lying in bed, I had to tell him his wife had died.  We were exhausted, we were all exhausted."
 
But then things started to take a turn for the better.
 
"The residents at my hospital worked tirelessly, we never gave up, we never stopped.  It appeared social distancing, hand hygiene and the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) started to take effect. The numbers slowly declined and the emergency department was eerily quiet as everyone stayed home. We started to see the light at the end of the tunnel."
 
Throughout it all Murphy kept referencing her experience at Fordham to help her cope with the tragedy.
 
"My time at Fordham University, particularly as a student-athlete, was essential in my ability to maintain mental stamina and resilience. In medicine, just as in athletics, a solid foundation is crucial to adapt to the unknown, or in this case a pandemic. New York City is a special place, there is "a grind" that is palpable in the air, an inner drive to get done what needs to be done.  Fordham helped me hone my ability to stay focused on the task at hand and overcome my obstacles, no matter how big or small, even the size of a viral particle."
 
"My biggest takeaway from COVID-19 is how blessed we are as a medical community to have Evidence-Based Medicine, meaning to have scientists and physicians work to study and create vaccines, treatment protocols and new medication regimens that are proven to work in a given disease state. For example, for influenza we have a vaccine and medications shown to reduce prevalence and illness severity. SARS COVID-19 does not, and this is what that looks like."
 
One final takeaway from Murphy: "Thank you so much Fordham University for the opportunity to share my experiences. We are healing. We are getting better, but it is important to not just remember what happened, but to learn for this experience in implementing policy and protocols in the future."
 
No Dr. Murphy, thank you for all you have been doing and please stay safe! And your email signature is so true: "Once a RAM always a RAM"