Breathing Room
Donté Flanagan 04Ox 06N brings critical expertise to help coronavirus patients.
Donté Flanagan has one of the most difficult jobs on the front line of fighting COVID-19. As a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA) based in hard-hit New Orleans, he’s been asked to cover emergency rooms and intensive care units to help in performing one critical task: Keep patients breathing.
“It feels like we’re in wartime here,” says Flanagan, who works at Touro Infirmary for LCMC Anesthesia. “My CRNA colleagues and I are stretching our scope of practice, going above and beyond our normal work in operating rooms. Since most elective surgeries and procedures have been postponed, we’re spending most of our time in ERs and ICUs, performing intubations, titrating sedation and paralytics, and administering mechanical ventilation.”
Donté Flanagan has one of the most difficult jobs on the front line of fighting COVID-19. As a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA) based in hard-hit New Orleans, he’s been asked to cover emergency rooms and intensive care units to help in performing one critical task: Keep patients breathing.
“It feels like we’re in wartime here,” says Flanagan, who works at Touro Infirmary for LCMC Anesthesia. “My CRNA colleagues and I are stretching our scope of practice, going above and beyond our normal work in operating rooms. Since most elective surgeries and procedures have been postponed, we’re spending most of our time in ERs and ICUs, performing intubations, titrating sedation and paralytics, and administering mechanical ventilation.”