A plea from your local healthcare workers…

I'll start this off by saying that I am very lucky to still be employed. My heart goes out to all of you that are out of work, temporarily or permanently.

With that being said, I have to ask a favor from everyone… Please stop going to the doctor unless you are acutely ill.

I work in multiple outpatient settings. My job is in no way "essential," yet none of my offices are slowing down their patient schedules. All of my neighbors are safe in their homes, while I'm out doing unnecessary exams on up to 30 patients a day without proper PPE.

Doctors offices / clinics are businesses. They will not cancel your appointment unless they are forced to. In fact, one of the offices is actually doing phone follow-ups for patients (to protect the precious physicians), but they are still having patients come to the office for their testing.

My spouse has an essential role at the hospital, meaning we're exposing our family to this virus two fold. Yes, in healthcare, we sign up to take the risk and treat the ill, but what I'm doing right now is not what I signed up for.

Nana does not need to risk exposing herself by doing her routine cardiac testing, to only have the doctor tell her everything is still normal (like it has been every year, for the past 5 years). Realistically, Covid-19 will likely injure me, but kill Nana.

Please relay this message to your friends and family (especially the elderly)… If you have a routine doctor's appointment scheduled, PLEASE CANCEL IT. It's not worth it – for you or for me.