However, studies show frontline healthcare workers' frequent, close contact with coronavirus patients puts them at higher risk of contracting the disease, hence the decision to give them top priority in getting immunized. Mary medical staff being admitted to the ICU for COVID. Tanios said he was not aware of other St. He said Pambuan's recovery was especially rewarding since she is part of the hospital's extended 'family.' Maged Tanios, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at St. seeing our patients going home alive and in good condition,' said Dr.

The outpouring of affection she received from colleagues - including many of the physicians, fellow nurses and therapists who took part in her care - also reflected a rare moment of communal triumph for the pandemic-weary hospital staff. The spectacle of Pambuan striding slowly but confidently through the hospital lobby - she had insisted on making her exit without assistance of a wheelchair or walker, although was still connected to supplementary oxygen - marked a transformative victory for the diminutive but tough ICU nurse. 'This is my second life,' Pambuan said moments earlier, as she prepared to leave her hospital room, accompanied by her husband, Daniel, 63, and their daughter, Shantell, 33, an aspiring social worker who spent months at her mother's bedside as her patient advocate and personal cheerleader. On Monday Pambuan beat the odds of her eight-month ordeal by walking out the front door of the hospital, drawing cheers, applause and exhilaration from colleagues lining the lobby to rejoice in her discharge. Mary's acute rehabilitation ward in late October. But she fought back and struggled through weeks of painful therapy to regain her strength and mobility, celebrating her 66th birthday in St.

So dire was her condition at one point that end-of-life options were discussed with her family.īy the time she awoke and could breathe on her own again, she was too weak to stand. She came close to death on several occasions, her doctors later revealed.

Mary Medical Center, her workplace for the past 40 years, where she was rendered unconscious by paralysis-inducing sedation and placed on a ventilator to breathe. Last spring in a tragic role reversal, Pambuan became one of those patients - admitted to the intensive care unit of St. (Reuters) - As a veteran ICU nurse whose job is to care for the most critically ill patients at her hospital in Long Beach, California, Merlin Pambuan was well aware of the deadly ravages COVID-19 can inflict on the human body.

My second life