Pandemic Spotlight: Canadian Doctors at the Front of the COVID-19 Fight by Ian Hanomansing
Publisher: Harbour Publishing
Special thanks to Harbour Publishing for sending a copy for review.
Summary:
CBC journalist Ian Hanomansing profiles Canadian infectious disease doctors who stepped up to guide the nation through its worst medical crisis in a century.
Canadians who have followed the news about the COVID-19 pandemic will recognize the names of doctors Lisa Barrett, Isaac Bogoch, Zain Chagla, Sumon Chakrabarti, Susy Hota, Fatima Kakkar, Srinivas Murthy, Lynora Saxinger and Alexander Wong—nine remarkable Canadians who found themselves in the spotlight during a remarkably challenging year.
While dealing with their own personal concerns about the worsening pandemic and their busy medical practices, the doctors profiled in Pandemic Spotlight volunteered their time and offered their expertise in hundreds of media interviews, providing calm, clear and independent analysis. Hanomansing talks to them about what inspired them to become doctors and what led them to specialize in infectious diseases and then take on this very public role (Goodreads).
Thoughts:
Pandemic Spotlight by Ian Hanomansing shines the spotlight on the efforts of our Canadian Infectious Disease (ID) doctors and how they dealt with being thrust front and centre by the media during COVID-19. This novel highlights nine ID doctors and how they chose ID as their specialty and how they handled their daily appearance in the news.
I enjoyed the way Hanomansing organised the bulk of the interviews with the ID doctors. Starting with the first chapter, Hanomansing lets readers know this novel consists of phone-call interviews. Writing about his first encounters with the ID doctors on television as a co-host of CBC’s The National, Hanomansing is clear and straight-to-the-point but also includes comical comments in brackets that detail his thoughts. This style of writing provided a sense of intimacy with the ID doctors as if readers were the ones interviewing them.
Each ID doctor has their own story. From majoring in political science to almost declining a medical school offer, each piece has its own individual nuances. The second chapter discusses these topics one-by-one. Some doctors I have never heard of before, as they primarily do media-work in the Maritimes, but some have been the faces of national news channels. I remember Dr. Isaac Bogoch appearing on CBC’s The National at 6PM while I ate dinner with my family. Reading about a familiar face and voice consistently for almost two years made me appreciate their dedication for media interviews during their busy schedules as ID specialists.
I found it interesting how nearly all of these leading ID specialists completed their education in their hometowns. One doctor highlighted that it didn’t matter if she went to med school at Harvard or the University of Saskatchewan. She found that the only difference between the two institutions was that there were more exceptional students at Harvard. When she did her residency in a big Boston hospital, comparing herself to medical students from top institutions was futile–she still held her own as an exceptional student regardless of where she received her degrees. As a student looking into post-secondary education, it is reassuring to hear that our future isn’t defined by how well-known or prestigious the school we’re admitted to is.
The ID doctors’ insights and responses to the pandemic are reflective of their past experiences from working during SARS or calculating flight paths/risk of ZIKA infections in Canada. Their wealth of experience did not entirely prepare them for the quick-hitting global catastrophe. While we were watching the news about how countries in Europe, mainly Italy, were clouded by thousands of COVID cases, our livelihoods in Canada were free of the strains in Emergency Rooms and the paranoia of catching the disease.
Many ID doctors were notified of a potential coronavirus outbreak from a stark 16-sentence Pro-Med, a publicly available surveillance system of infectious diseases, email on December 30, 2019. Hanomansing included an excerpt of this notice, which then allowed me to understand why many of the ID doctors were wary about something ominous looming back then. It was a vague but alarming notice for all the doctors with one doctor saying that she “definitely got the feeling [that they] knew THE event can happen, a pandemic can happen.” The next few chapters detail each of their responses to the pandemic, as well as their experience of essentially becoming online celebrities overnight.
I thoroughly enjoyed Pandemic Spotlight for its take on the COVID-19 pandemic. Reading about these ID doctors and their work has lit a new interest in infectious diseases for me, as well as the interviews they do in hopes of spreading reliable information during times of uncertainty and misinformation.
Reviewed by Zoe Y.