Veteran public health professional advises Schweitzer Fellows build partnerships for post-COVID-19

Dr. Linda Rae Murray never thought the concept of “flattening the curve” would become popularized. Dr. Murray, retired chief health officer for Cook County, Illinois, wasn’t ready to indicate the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic (https://www.nytimes.com/article/flatten-curve-coronavirus.html) would or could be flattened by current efforts underway at the state and local level, but she focused her remarks on after the country returns to a semblance of normalcy. “What happens, assuming that the curve is bent? What’s required is a huge public health workforce to contain the epidemic.” Dr. Murray spoke at a Schweitzer Fellowship webinar on April 8.

While crediting the current effort by hospital and ambulatory clinical efforts to test and treat infected people, she said that society needs to expand the notion of what are essential services. People managing the information technology and communications networks, truck drivers and logistics operators delivering food and groceries, municipal workers – “these are just as essential, arguably more essential than people in the ICU” in ensuring the health of the population once the initial phase of the pandemic ends. “We need to organize for six months, 12 months, 20 years down the road.” By that, she meant managing the “second wave” of the pandemic. It will be a year or longer before there is a vaccine. Hopefully, applied research brings treatment options. From a public health standpoint, there needs to be “very aggressive contact tracing to keep the number of infections in control. If we back off of isolation,” the epidemic will return, as it did during the Spanish Flu of 1918.

She called on Schweitzer Fellows for Life – those who have completed fellowships and have professional jobs – and current Fellows to assume leadership roles in the community response to the pandemic. Dr. Murray and others on the webinar reiterated that the Schweitzer Fellowship is a leadership development experience. It is service learning, but more than that. Fellows self-select as leaders with the potential to do more than making face masks or delivering groceries for homebound elderly – they organize these programs and advocate for immediate and long-term social change.

Dr. Murray’s ultimate challenge to the Schweitzer audience was to create partnerships among those of different political and social persuasions. “How can we bring together those who don’t sit in the same room? It’s only by bridging these silos that we can have an appropriate response.” The webinar was designed to foster a network of like-minded community health advocates. Dr. Murray’s challenge created a kind of stretch goal that gave attendees a lot to think about – and talk among themselves.

Dennis Archambault is vice president of Public Health and director of the Detroit Schweitzer Fellowship at Authority Health.