By ARMAND KASSAM

My heart is racing faster than the patient on a stretcher in front of me. Yet, I am still numb to the sounds of call bells and alarms creating a cacophony around me. I’m a city boy, and you’d figure I’d be used to this. But ever since January 6th, 2021, my entire life has changed.

As the country watched the chaos unfold in our nation’s capital, I sat at a bar by myself, waiting for a dreaded phone call.

It came at 6:27 p.m., a simple message: “He’s gone…” and the room around me started spinning.

“He” referred to Colten David Brown, one of my greatest friends. I met Colten in college, and we spent every waking moment together; bouncing at bars, going to concerts, yelling at screens as if football players could hear us miles away.

In our small college town, it became apparent that we both had a loud presence in a room; where you’d find one of us, the other was 5 feet away, completely inseparable.

Colten graduated from Penn State Behrend, and continuing his desire to serve others, he worked as a probation officer.

I stayed in the business world, just trying to figure out my place in life’s journey. But as for many, everything changed when the pandemic hit.

At the age of 24, Colten contracted the virus and complained about serious breathing problems. He presented to the ER and was immediately admitted to the hospital. Within a week, he was transferred to UPMC Presbyterian, intubated, in a medically induced coma, and breathing through a ventilator.

Two weeks later, his body stopped fighting, and despite being a robust and healthy person, he was exhausted.

Growing up in a healthcare family, my parents would tell me work stories about cases they had, and despite being proud, I got bored of it. But that fateful day in 2021, that changed. I left the security firm I was at in Manhattan and joined the ranks of medical staff almost immediately. I quickly realized that I was good at it, but I could only affect change so much in a small hospital, the same one to which Colten was initially admitted.

I still remember my first patient, being riddled with anxiety, watching a tube being shoved down his throat so he could breathe properly. I still remember the first time I watched a patient whom I had taken care of for weeks being wheeled out of the hospital, going home, and thanking us repeatedly as if we had been his saviors. I still remember watching someone taking their last gasp of air, surrounded by family, and telling his son-in-law one last time, “I am blessed to have you as my own,” before passing silently. I still remember all of them, through the good and bad, each night like a lucid dream.

Many people who knew Colt and I’s friendship continue to watch me persist through this journey. Many days, I wonder whether I am worthy of taking care of others, but I know that there is an audience behind me. His loss inspired me in a way that even his family still talks about how I became a son to them. So when I put on scrubs each morning, I will not work for a paycheck but for their son.

For the last 3 years, scrub-clad warriors marched down the streets of cities and towns, dreading what the shift might bring.

That community, through a level of resilience comparable to soldiers marching to war, continues to fight a war against an unseen enemy with limited resources. While it is an honor to serve alongside them, this uphill battle is taxing to us all, and it shows.

I wanted to avoid burnout as soon as I figured out what it was. So, each morning, I wake up and check my email with a picture of Colten and me on my desk. And each day, I walk down a single hall at 6:50 a.m., surrounded by a group of these scrubbed-up saviors, wondering what the next 12 hours will bring. And each waking minute, I wonder how I can improve the lives of the staff and the patients we all are responsible for. Because all I can see when I stare at a patient, scared, alone, with no one but myself around, is Colten. And I’ll pause on the rough shifts (there are many) and watch one of many videos of Dr. Amin Kassam.

My father is a perfect example of what anyone in our field should do: focusing on the patient-centered model we must uphold at all costs. Coming from a background filled with adversity, my father wanted to revolutionize medicine in a way that was seen as impossible. And yet he did it while fighting so many obstacles, with my mother and two sons as an awe-inspired audience. I still recall staying up as late as I could in our first house in the US, waiting for a big hug from him fresh out of the OR. Growing up, I’d see him visiting patients on his days off or calling even the nurses to ensure they were stable. The man would give you the shirt off his back and never ask for it again. There was no financial motive for him, he just wanted to help people as best he could. So I started looking at his personal model more closely; it resonated very closely with Colten’s behavior: serving others. …

In that bed, that stretcher, that chair, is a person, someone’s son/daughter, a spouse. They, like staff, don’t want to be in a hospital. They are scared and nervous, and channels are screaming off, getting poked and prodded like cattle, and mostly likely alone. We are their only family at arrival, to discharge, or worse. I imagine Colten, being intubated, most likely scared out of his mind, with the last memory flashing through his brain being a nurse trying to comfort him, knowing that he won’t wake up.

I see Colten in every patient I treat. I see every notion of emotions rushing through them. And I see my father standing next to me, trying to mirror everything he’d do.

A conventional system, with such limited resources, can do amazing things just by providing better bedside care. One of my favorite things to do is simply roll my computer into a patient’s room to chart and have a conversation. Understanding even the most minor details about an individual restores their dignity, especially in an environment in which they feel lost.

We are so limited in staffing alone, and staff is the most critical resource that timing can be rough. But if an opportunity presents itself, take advantage of it.

None of us, especially given the current state of the world, knows when we will take our last breath. We have no idea, as a society, if we can wake up in the morning. Focus on your Colten. Understand that we can still have an opportunity to make a difference, no matter how small.

I am blessed to have the opportunity to help people, especially in this capacity. As I sit here, finishing this rambling of an exhausted healthcare worker on one of my only days off, I get excited thinking about what people I can impact tomorrow.

As I write this, I open tabs, following different medical articles, absorbing this information like a drug. It annoys many of my friends when I am off, but they continue to watch my passion grow unprecedentedly, as I am always in “work mode.”

I am blessed that, despite the uncertainty of waking up in the morning, I get a chance to make a difference in such terrible times. I am blessed to work with such incredible people in a prolific community. Not everyone is made for this, but thanks to my father (in more ways than you’d fathom) and Colten, I am blessed that I can do this.

Being away from family alone is tough, especially in a different country or city, but I know they are watching me follow in my father’s footsteps as best I can. Leaving them behind for university here was a tough but important decision to ensure that our family’s proud history of service is upheld. As I leave each morning for work, I stare at my last name on my jacket with pride and carry that momentum with me into every shift.

It no longer becomes just Armand walking into a room but rather generations of adversity fueled by the idea of service to others. I look at the little “PIT” pin, a gift from the first patient I treated in this city, as a reminder of the work my colleagues and I continue to do.

Sometimes, we need to listen to our souls to help heal.

As Robin Williams said, “If you treat a disease, you win, or you lose. If you treat a person, I guarantee you’ll win, no matter the outcome.”

Dedicated to Dr. Amin Kassam, Mrs. Greta Kassam, and Colten D. Brown