Long live heroes: Stories from the front lines

Alicia Kotz, RN

When she started as an emergency nurse at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in August 2019, Alicia Kotz had no idea she’d be a frontline provider during a pandemic. Tasked with working In the triage COVID-19 screening and treatment tents outside the hospital’s Emergency Department, she took her new assignment in stride. “No matter if I’m working in the ED on a normal day or in a tent during a pandemic, our patients always come first,” she says. 

In the screening tent, Ms. Kotz educates her patients on symptoms, handwashing, their risk of exposing others and recovery. After patients are screened, those who meet the requirements for testing are swabbed. From there, each person is triaged either to be sent home for self-quarantine, treated by physician assistants and nurse practitioners in the treatment tent or admitted into a negative-pressure room in the hospital. Ms. Kotz also works in the treatment tent helping to care for patients with COVID-19 symptoms.

“We communicate constantly in order to make sure the patient is triaged properly,” she says. “This team absolutely has each other’s backs, and we readily step in for each other when someone needs help.”

Ms. Kotz emphasizes that the best way for people to stop the spread of the coronavirus is to stay home, practice social distancing, wash hands often, listen to medical experts, visit the Geisinger Coronavirus Resource Center for updates and call the Geisinger hotline before heading to the ER. “They can schedule you for testing and tell you how to get the right care,” she says.

And her message to her coworkers? “Everyone is doing a fantastic job. I have no doubt that we’ll come out of this even stronger than we were before the pandemic.”