Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1302793
As the director of adult critical care at Navicent Health, Dr. Amy Christie works with the "sickest of the sick" and has been at the forefront of the hospital's COVID-19 battle since day one. An intensivist with a background in general surgery, Dr. Christie loves the critical care side of medicine. "I have always loved the idea of trying to take patients who are very sick and providing the best care we can," said Dr. Christie, whose husband, Dr. Benjie Christie, is a trauma surgeon at The Medical Center. "What I also love about the ICU is the team approach. It's a place in medicine that really embraces a multidisciplinary team. ... Another important part is the patient's family. In many cases, family members become the voice for the patient." As part of the ICU team, Dr. Christie helped design the units that now care for COVID-19 patients, and also helped the hospital develop its surge and staffing plans, which she called "an evolving operation" and "a collaborative effort." Dr. Christie was the first intensivist at Navicent to take shifts to care for patients who tested positive for COVID-19. "She has worked tirelessly and stayed on top of the continuously updated Dr. Amy Christie information on COVID-19. Because of her attention to detail and commitment, the hospital has had great success in treating COVID-19 patients," said Dr. Patrice Walker, the hospital's chief medical officer. "Her patients' stories of recovery give hope and inspiration to our teammates, our community and others battling this virus." In some cases, patients have reached back out to Navicent providers to share updates about their recovery. "One early patient shared a video of himself exercising and playing the 'Rocky' theme song; it was great," Dr. Christie said. "When we see someone recover, it builds everyone's sense of accomplishment." While she is flattered that some consider her a hero, she credited the ICU's team approach as the true hero. "In this time of unknown and fear, we all have to look to each other and depend on each other. In these times, none of us has all the answers," she said. "I appreciate the recognition, but I've always believed in the team approach. I lead by action or example. People who know me know that I'm quiet in my day-to-day. I try to work hard and do the best I can to connect with the team, our patients and their families." —Renee Corwine ALEX PERMENTER Alex Permenter, founder and owner of Alex's PC Solutions, has been utilizing his team's technical skills to help out local medical practices. "A lot of them are struggling with how to see patients, and patients being scared to come in for their appointments," Permenter said. He took matters into his own hands by setting up medical offices with Telehealth to create a safer way for patients and doctors to meet for appointments. Since webcams also are hard to get right now, Permenter and PC Solutions have been giving medical practices webcams for free to ease the transition to online appointments. "We were happy to help," said Permenter. "We knew that there was a need for this and we had a few of our doctor's offices that were asking us for it who were already clients and we thought that we should just do this for everybody." OBGYN Specialists administrator Melanie Black is one of the many customers thankful for Permenter's help. "He has devoted 24 hours a day to any need that the practice has had. Before it even became known to the world, he went around and had the foresight to buy webcams and went out and just donated them to medical practices, so that doctors would be able to do telemedicine," said Black. "He has set up several of our employees to be able to work from home and even sent his staff out to the employees' houses for the ones who were not as computer savvy to help them and show them how they could work from home." Permenter's good doing has proved he is a community hero because of his care and concern for healthcare and knowledge of how important it is for the providers to have the technology they so desperately need right now. With roots in Permenter's passion for fixing computers as a kid, Alex's PC Solutions offers Middle Georgians access to computer tech assistance, IT services and phone systems. Permenter's offer for free webcams and technology help still stands. —Meghan Lindstrom 4