British Abrams ’19

Nurse, Cardiovascular ICU - Medstar Washington Hospital Center

British Abrams ’19 has always known she wanted to be a nurse since the age of four.British Abrams ’19 has always known she wanted to be a nurse since the age of four. She is an nurse working in the cardiovascular intensive care unit at Medstar Washington Hospital Center. She likes working with the heart system as the heart is a complex organ, and it affects the rest of the body. “If something goes wrong with the heart, it will have an impact on your body,” she says.

Right now, the department where she works has some COVID-19 patients-especially the sickest. The role of nurses and doctors in the medical ICU is to stabilize the patients, but the various treatment options are trial and error. To help the patients in need, she must gown up in protective gear and is careful to limit interaction with the patients so there won’t be a chance of infection or making the patient worse.

She believes the pandemic will “change nursing policies in the future because, as a nurse, you will always have the concern whether you will catch it yourself or if you will make a patient sicker.” She wants people to take this seriously because there is still much unknown about this virus.