The coronavirus pandemic has reshaped everyone’s lives. But for health-care workers, the impact of covid-19 is felt acutely, tragically, every day.

To capture the lived reality of this, we asked Shaoli Chaudhuri, 29, who is in her third and last year as an internal medicine resident at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), to keep a 30-day diary of what she is experiencing.

Chaudhuri works at CUIMC and the Allen Hospital in New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States.

Reflecting on keeping a 30-day diary, Chaudhuri writes: “Sometimes I think there are no words for what we are going through as health-care workers combatting COVID-19. But looking at this journal, there seem to be plenty. Writing about the experience has helped me through the trauma, the ups and downs, and the search for light in the darkness. This is dedicated to the heroes we’ve lost, Lorna Breen, Romy Ocampo; and my personal heroes, my loving family, friends, podmates and colleagues in the trenches with me.”

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