VCOM View Vol 10 No 1

The help does not stop there; VCOM faculty member Eric Stanley, DO, Discipline Chair for Emergency Medicine, is helping to determine where the masks should go and where they are needed most. Dr. Stanley is giving guidance to Carol Davis and Dr. Carpenetti about getting masks to First Responders in the local areas. Dr. Stanley is the Medical Director of six of Montgomery County’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Some EMS groups are so short on masks such as the Shawsville EMS that at one point, they were going to run out of masks to give to patients within six days. The Radford Arsenal Plant Fire and Rescue were the first to receive masks because they “It was astounding to me that the idea that these First Responders, the front line healthcare workers, are going to be at a huge risk because they can’t even put a mask on a patient to help decrease the risk. It really struck me that there really is no PPE around, and even though we’re not in a hot spot, they’re still at risk, and there are still cases around here, and they have to treat everyone as possibly infected. My thought was we’re going to funnel these where they need to go,” said Carpenetti. Dr. Stanley commended all of the student volunteers that are sewing masks as amazing. were down to almost no masks in their inventory.

“I think it’s a pretty good number of folks. You know, it’s amazing. I certainly I want to shout out a big thanks to VCOM and Dixie Tooke-Rawlins, DO, for buying material for the students to use and ultimately for it to be donated to Fire and EMS,” said Dr. Stanley An unfortunate truth of the pandemic is the move to virtual learning and canceling rotations for third and fourth-year students that medical schools have had to do across the country. The students began to feel helpless by not being able to help when their calling in life is helping people, but Dr. Carpenetti gave VCOM students hope.

The projects don’t stop there, Dr. Carpenetti, Dr. Stanley and Matt Hull have all been working with Dr. Jeff Kessel, an anesthesiologist for Anesthesiology Consultants of Virginia (ACV), to create a prototype mask that could replace the N95 mask. Dr. Kessel is able to take a mask to employee health at Roanoke Memorial and have the staff there test how protective the mask is. They are still refining the mask style, layers, and inserts, but are making progress. “Maybe this could help define the N95 style moving forward because the current designs and materials are woefully poor when someone has to wear it for hours on end. Having appropriate

“The students have been fantastic. I’ll tell them I have a bunch of copper that needs to be cut for the masks, and the students will come and pick it up and drop it off when they’re done. Students will contact me saying they don’t know how to sew, but what can I do to help. They have been dropping off bags of t-shirts to use as the ties for the masks, which I have found to be better than using the H600 material,” said Carpenetti. “ The answer is not throwing

protection is paramount to our group. We are still doing urgent and emergent cases and have to provide care to known or suspected COVID-19 patients,” said Dr. Kessel. From the EMS perspective, Dr. Stanley is giving his guidance on what EMS personnel need. “My interests for EMS is more of

money at the problem, it is putting time into the problem.” Tiffany Carpenetti, PhD Assistant Professor for Anatomical Sciences at VCOM-Virginia

a simple surgical type mask that isn’t meant to function like an N95, but just something that is a layer of protection. The current wisdom from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is that you only need the N95 for procedures where you are you going to be around a lot of small particles,” said Dr. Stanley. In their endeavor to create more available gear, Matt Hull and Dr. Kessel were contacted by the NRV Mask Makers group about supplies. They are sourcing H400-600

summer/fall 2020 | VCOM V iew M agazine 23