Aidan Gardiner, The New York Times
Published: 13 Mar 2021 10:59 AM BdST
Updated: 13 Mar 2021 11:01 AM BdST Gabrielle Dawn Luna, who followed her father into emergency nursing, sits for a portrait at her home in Woodbridge, NJ, on Jan 31, 2021. She was the last person to hold her father s hand when he died of COVID-19 in April at her hospital in Teaneck, NJ (Calla Kessler/The New York Times)
Gabrielle Dawn Luna sees her father in every patient she treats. );
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As an emergency room nurse in the same hospital where her father lay dying of COVID last March, Luna knows firsthand what it is like for a family to hang on to every new piece of information. She has become acutely aware of the need to take extra time in explaining developments to a patient’s relatives who are often desperate for updates.
Gabrielle Dawn Luna sees her father in every patient she treats.
As an emergency room nurse in the same hospital where her father lay dying of Covid last March, Ms. Luna knows firsthand what it’s like for a family to hang on to every new piece of information. She’s become acutely aware of the need to take extra time in explaining developments to a patient’s relatives who are often desperate for updates.
And Ms. Luna has been willing to share her personal loss if it helps, as she did recently with a patient whose husband died. But she has also learned to withhold it to respect each person’s distinct grief, as she did when a colleague’s father also succumbed to the disease.