#33 Scott Cooper: The Front Lines of Coronavirus

When beloved children’s television icon Fred Rogers was a child he would sometimes see troubling stories or images in the news, and he would look to his mother for help. Her advice was simple, but left its mark: “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

Season 4 of Paternal opens with a conversation with Scott Cooper, a New Jersey-based single father of two with a daily glimpse into the severity of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. Scott is the Director of Professional Practice at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, New Jersey, a hospital that has been inundated with Covid-19 patients since the virus took hold in March.

Scott has ditched his suit and tie in favor of scrubs and a mask for roughly the past month, serving as a critical care nurse for patients placed in the hospital’s ever-expanding Intensive Care Unit. Despite nearly three decades in nursing the Tri-State Area, he’s never seen anything like this. He’s afraid he’ll get sick. He’s afraid his patients will die. And when he hears “Code Blue” on the hospital’s intercom, he runs.

Listen in as Scott discusses the toll Covid-19 has taken on the hospital, what it’s like to lose a patient to the virus and how the hospital staff salutes the survivors. Scott also examines what lessons he’s learned from the experience of the past six weeks - suddenly he has become the helper Rogers was seeking - and how he’s speaking with his kids about times of trouble, as well as the opportunities that await whenever the pandemic finally ends.