Helping Shield Clinicians and the Community from Contagion

(from the July/August 2020 ACP Internist)

By Stacey Butterfield

Face shields on top of masks may be another avenue in fighting the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Masks are a key tool in the fight against COVID-19, but they also pose some problems.

Infectious diseases subspecialist Sonali Advani, MBBS, MPH, discovered both benefits and challenges of masking early in the pandemic. “The burden of employee furloughs and contact tracing [due to COVID-19 exposure] in hospitals was increasing so much that we needed to implement universal masking,” she said. “All employees, clinical employees or nonclinical employees—they could be the person preparing our food or the employee who is cleaning—everybody in the hospital is wearing a mask at all times.”

Read the full article in ACP Internist.

ACP Internist provides news and information for internists about the practice of medicine and reports on the policies, products, and activities of ACP.

Back to the August 2020 issue of ACP IMpact