/PRNewswire/ St. Francis Medical Center (SFMC) is one of the busiest hospitals in Los Angeles County, with the only level 2 trauma, stroke, and STEMI (heart.
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During the worst moments of a surge in Southern California, doctors and nurses frantically trying to save patients at overcrowded hospitals made terrifying warnings about what they were seeing.
Dr. Christine Choi balances the iPad in her hands and scans the callers on the screen. It is a family gathering, pandemic-style: People in the foreground have video-called others, who have video-called a few more. A collage of faces peer back at her.
She asks them if they are ready. Yes, they say. Stoic.
Choi taps the corner of the tablet. The camera switches from her face to that of a lifeless man in a hospital bed. Their loved one, killed by COVID-19.
The quiet in the hospital room is pierced by wailing.
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Choi is a tough, upbeat second-year medical resident at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, one of four public hospitals in Los Angeles County. But even for her, the pain of what she witnesses each day what healthcare workers across the country have witnessed over the last year can become too much.