The Doctor's Art: The Sky Was Falling — Stories from a COVID Diary (with Dr. Cornelia Griggs)

In spring of 2020, Cornelia Griggs, MD was finishing her nearly decade-long training to become a pediatric surgeon in New York City, when COVID-19 struck and life fell apart. The hospital was flooded with mysteriously sick patients for whom no known treatments existed, basic supplies disappeared from shelves, and each day at work took on an existential burden as she wondered if this would be the day she caught the deadly disease herself. 

Dr. Griggs describes these dramatic stories from the early days of the pandemic in her 2024 memoir, The Sky Was Falling. Today, she is a triple board-certified pediatric surgeon, having completed medical school and pediatric surgery fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center, and her adult general surgery residency and surgical critical care fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she currently practices. 

Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Griggs describes the course of her challenging training in medicine, why it takes “a little crazy” to succeed as a surgeon, harrowing moments that defined heroism amid the throes of the pandemic, how she continued working even when giving up was the easy option, and more.

In this episode, you’ll hear about: 

2:26 - What initially drew Dr. Griggs into the field of medicine and to the speciality of pediatric surgery 

14:35 - Why the operating room is a “safe space” for Dr. Griggs

19:36 - The sense of alarm that Dr. Griggs experienced in the early days of the pandemic that drove her to write her viral New York Times op-ed, The Sky is Falling 

28:26 - How Dr. Griggs fell into an “investigative reporter” headspace as the pandemic raged around her in New York City 

30:26 - The sense of fear that enveloped both patients and the medical community during the first months of the pandemic 

40:27 - A moment during the early pandemic when Dr. Griggs seriously considered leaving the city and her post in the hospital

46:30 - How ICU nurses brought dignity and humanity when tending to seriously ill COVID-19 patients

51:16 - The hopefulness Dr. Griggs carries in seeing the large number of people who have entered medicine since the pandemic

Dr. Cornelia Griggs can be found on Twitter/X at @CorneliaLG.

Dr. Griggs is the author of The Sky Was Falling (2024).

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