When Nancy Angoff, MD ‘90, MPH ‘81, MEd, professor of medicine and then associate dean for student affairs, and Ann Williams, EdD, RNC, a former Yale School of
Molly Ferguson for STAT
In his first month as a pediatric intern at the University of California San Francisco, Alexander Hartman saw his first patient with an eating disorder. The same night, he saw a dozen more.
His first rotation of his first year of residency was in the general pediatrics ward, and on nights, Hartman and the other interns covered the adolescent service, seeing teens starting from puberty. One night in June 2020, there were around a dozen patients in the ward, all with eating disorders. It was double the usual caseload.
Some patients had been there for weeks, Hartman said, and were well known to the service due to their long-term eating disorders, while others were new. All of them found that the pandemic had exacerbated their stress. Hartman found himself running between the ward and the adolescents, intercepting pages. He saw one 16-year-old girl, who he was told had come to the department for treatment before, who was now refusing food, her heart rate dippin