June 17, 2020 – The School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine faculty, staff, students, and alumni are working on the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak. We have asked any affiliates with our school to share their experiences and stories. This story comes from Callie Kennedy:
Callie Kennedy, MD/MPH Candidate, Class of 2021, has been collaborating with the Daughters of Charity clinic network and more broadly the DePaul Community Health Center network looking at the presenting symptoms of COVID-19 positive patients in this primary care setting.
"In the DePaul Community Health Center clinics, patients testing positive for COVID-19 were presenting with far more diverse symptoms in early Spring of 2020 than the three primary symptoms (cough, fever, shortness of breath) initially outlined by the CDC for screening." Said Kennedy. "In an effort to better understand the variety of presenting symptoms in COVID-19+ patients in this clinic network, over 150 COVID-19+ patient charts were analyzed for presenting symptoms, in addition to noting other potentially pertinent patient demographics such as age, gender, race, and high-risk comorbidities. From these analyses, I created a report summarizing the findings and important public health implications from the data. I provided this summary to Dr. Robert Post, the Medical Director of Daughters of Charity Services, to be disseminated across the clinic network and to other primary care networks in the Greater New Orleans area."
