코로나 생활치료센터 의사의 역할

Abstract

The Republic of Korea’s government created community treatment centers (CTCs) to isolate and monitor patients with mild coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) symptoms. Since CTCs offer appropriate clinical triaging and daily monitoring for patients, they are a safe alternative to medical institutions for asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic COVID-19 patients. The aim of this paper is to describe the role of physicians working at CTCs. I worked as a physician at a CTC that re-opened for 24 days in January 2022 as part of a team of three physicians. We developed and revised a manual for the doctors who would take over our work. This paper includes part of the manual and my diary made at that time. A physician at a CTC performs the following tasks: (1) prescribing oral drugs to symptomatic patients, (2) confirming patients’ discharge, (3) giving orders to admitting patients and filling out the electronic medical record, (4) confirming the reports of chest X-ray films taken the previous day, (5) transferring severe cases, (6) confirming patients’ admission, and (7) collecting samples from the nose and throat for polymerase chain reaction testing. Physicians play an important role at CTCs. It is thought that a 2- or 3-week rotation of physicians is too frequent. A 1-week quarantine period at CTCs seems to be too short because the mean period of viral shedding is 23.8±8.7 days (range, 8-49 days). It has been a privilege for me to work as a physician at a CTC.