Dr. Tsion Firew is an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine and Global Health Faculty at Columbia University and she also serves as an advisor to the Minister of Health of Ethiopia on Strategic Partnership and Emergency Care.Dr. Tsion Firew, who is working as an emergency physician in New York, but has also worked as a medic in Iraq, said the hospital she works in feels like an active warzone.
You can follow her on Twitter @DrTsion and her Facebook.
Catch some of her media appearances so far. I will continue to update this post.
Dr. Tsion on NPR ALL THING CONSIDER
Like a War Zone – THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Emergency-room physician Tsion Firew worked in Mosul, Iraq, amid fighting in 2017. She has practiced medicine in developing countries such as Ghana, Haiti, and Ethiopia, where she is an adviser to the minister of health. She never thought she would experience similar working conditions in Manhattan.
“It feels like a dream,” says Dr. Firew, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Columbia University. “I can’t believe this is happening here in New York City. It feels like I’m back in a war zone, except there are no bullets flying.”
Adding to the strain, colleagues and other health-care providers at the Manhattan hospital where she works are out sick.
Dr. Firew was supposed to fly to Ethiopia for work in March, but exposure to someone with the virus kept her grounded in New York. She returned to work after a period of self-quarantine. But she recently tested positive for Covid-19 and had to self-quarantine again. She is slated to return to work this week.
While at home in Manhattan, she often has Zoom calls with officials in Ethiopia who are eager to hear about what’s going on. She worries about how the developing world will handle the continuing pandemic.
“What happens with this disease when it spreads in places like Africa and lower income countries?” she says. “If New York can’t handle it right now, what’s going to happen?”
VOA Second Interview
VOA – Africa – Women Health
LA Times
CNN
Now This
Author: Dahabesha
@dahabesha