Dr. Megan Ranney on the Pandemic’s Evolution and “Long COVID”

This week on Public Health Out Loud, we’re joined by guest expert Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Rhode Island Hospital and Miriam Hospital. She is also the Associate Dean of Strategy and Innovation for the School of Public Health, founding Director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health, and co-founder and Senior Strategic Advisor to the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine at the Aspen Institute. Her full biography is available on this web page.  In this episode, co-hosts Dr. Jim McDonald and Dr. Philip Chan ask Dr. Ranney about her experience working on the front lines of a local emergency department since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It has been a series of ups and downs. I was actually in the emergency department the night that the very first identified COVID-19 patient in our state came in,” Dr. Ranney says. “I remember the feeling that night knowing that it finally hit us here in Rhode Island.” Dr. Ranney also talks about her work with Dr. Ashish Jha on the Long COVID Initiative, which is a coalition of clinicians, researchers, and public health communicators working together to shed light on the long-lasting impacts that a COVID-19 diagnosis has had on some patients' health.  Download this week’s episode to learn more.