People of KHSC: Dr. Audrey Tran

While it would be safe to say that COVID has dominated most people’s lives for the last two years, it’s specifically true for Dr. Audrey Tran. She’s not only worked multiple rotations caring for patients on KHSC’s COVID unit during the pandemic, but was also an early participant in the popular Vaccine Hunters Canada movement.

“My family lives in Toronto and I was looking out for vaccine appointments for them and I found that it was really hard to keep track of who could get the appointments and when they could register. It was all fairly straightforward here in Kingston, but in Toronto there were just so many locations and the criteria was changing so quickly, so I started to keep track of it all on a spreadsheet.”

“I had to hunt around on the internet for the information and I posted the spreadsheet on Facebook to share it with my friends and family. The organizers of Vaccine Hunters Canada saw it and asked me to come on board very early on. I joined their forums to just help people navigate the system and I kept that spreadsheet going until most people across the country had their first or second doses booked.”

“It was very inspiring to be a part of. You hear all this bad news during the pandemic, but everyone was a volunteer, we didn’t know each other, but we came together to help each other. It really was a good news story, Canadians helping Canadians. We were just trying to fill in whatever gaps we could to help make it easier for others.”

At the same time, Dr. Tran was working through multiple rotations on KHSC’s COVID unit as well as other inpatient units at the hospital. All of this of course was combined with her teaching role at Queen’s University as an Assistant Professor, and her own studies for a master’s degree in health professions education.

“Our whole division rotates through the COVID unit and I have done it three times so far. I particularly remember last spring when we were getting patient transfers from Toronto. It was interesting because at that time we didn’t have many cases in Kingston and at times we weren’t always sure how many transfers were coming in.”

“It made me think how we are all in it together, this is happening to all of us. Even if Kingston didn’t have a lot of cases, our hospital was still impacted. I felt very privileged to help out because we would see what was happening in Toronto and I felt bad that we couldn’t help at first. So when patients began to come here, it was nice to help any way we could.”

Although offering that help wasn’t always easy.

“It was difficult to have conversations with families who were so far away. These were very diverse groups of patients who were generally essential workers from multi-generational homes. There was a lot of variability in the patients we were seeing too, some people did get really sick really quickly, but others did not get as sick. We also saw a lot of patients who had their preexisting conditions made much worse by COVID. Not only did we need to treat the virus but we also needed to treat their underlying diseases and conditions.”

“But working on the COVID ward has been amazing. Everyone I worked with on Connell 3 has been awesome. Our charge nurse has been doing an amazing job. Everyone has pitched in to help, we were really lucky to have everyone on that floor.”

Through two years of providing front line care through a pandemic, the biggest takeaways Dr. Tran has learned, is taking the time to show kindness to others, no matter how busy you are.

“One of the things, growing up I had a really good doctor that explained everything to me and I really trusted him. I could see the impact that a good doctor could have on someone. Although we see a lot of negativity right now, those small acts of kindness can mean a lot, especially to other health-care workers. Even if I am having a hard day, I think there is still room to show compassion to help each other get through. I know that means a lot to me and I really try to show that to others.”