Unit on the Brink: E1 - Duty of Care

“It’s a battle of wanting to provide care and wanting to protect yourself and the people you love,” says nurse Megan Diehl. This tug of war is one critical care nurses faced constantly through the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the 4th floor of University of Utah Hospital, the medical intensive care unit (MICU) has always treated the very sickest of the sick. The unit’s medical professionals go to extraordinary lengths to save the people in their care. But as the first COVID-19 patients trickled in, these lifesavers discovered that the precautions necessary to protect themselves from the virus challenged the very essence of their duty as healers.