A poignant New York Times article on COVID-19 about two expectant mothers prominently features Dr. Erroll Byer Jr., Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Brooklyn Hospital Center (BHC), and his heroic work in the wards. Several AUC medical students and graduates have trained under Dr. Byer, who has served as AUC’s OB/GYN Clerkship Director at BHC since September 2019.
The article, “Hope, and New Life, in a Brooklyn Maternity Ward Fighting COVID-19,” takes readers inside a busy obstetrics unit in New York City, the center of the crisis in the United States. New mothers have welcomed nearly 200 babies at BHC since the beginning of March, but with 29 pregnant or delivering women having suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of the article’s publication, the experience of giving birth has been transformed in a multitude of ways. As chairman of the Obstetrics and Gynecology department, Dr. Byer is at the forefront of the efforts to keep mother and child safe amid the ongoing threat of the novel coronavirus.
“Because COVID is such a new and novel virus,” Dr. Byer says in the article, there is no way to know what the outcome will be in an individual patient, “even though you’ve tried everything you possibly could.”
Dr. Byer is one of several healthcare workers in our AUC family on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. For more stories on how our students, graduates, and faculty members are helping, visit www.careforcaregivers.com.
Read the full article on NYTimes.com: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/nyregion/coronavirus-births-mothers.html