The pandemic brought to light the issues of mental wellness among health care workers, but one provider in Danbury was familiar with those strains even before the arrival of COVID-19.
It was largely driven by her own journey with chronic illness.
Now, Kateland Kelly is sharing her stories from the frontline in a collection of essays, hoping to connect with patients around the world.
Kelly, a physician assistant at an Urgent Care in Danbury, has been practicing medicine for a decade. She is laying out some of her experiences in a book called “The Secular Prayers of Medicine: Stories from the Frontlines.” She plans to publish the collection next year.
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The essays not only include her perspective as a physician assistant. Kelly has experience on both sides of the exam table.
“I was born a very, very sick child,” she said. “I was pronounced dead with cardiac arrest twice before 12 months.”
She was born with a congenital heart defect, but as Kelly went on to live a life of chronic illness, she was not able to get a clear diagnosis.
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“As a woman, for me it was very eye opening to go to all these specialists and say, ‘I've been practicing for 8, 9, 10 years,’ then they still didn't listen to me,” Kelly said.
The physical suffering took a toll on her mental health, so much that Kelly tried to take her own life in 2019.
“I'm a suicide attempt survivor,” she said. “My attempt was made after a shift at work, because I didn't want to live with the pain anymore.”
However, Kelly survived. Shortly after, she discovered the source of her agony.
“Dunbar syndrome, or MALS, Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome, is in less than 1% of the population,” Kelly said. “It is considered to be as painful as end stage pancreatic cancer.”
She underwent surgery in March of this year.
“It cured me,” Kelly said. “They anticipate full recovery will take up to a year.”
Through her clinical work, Kelly pays special attention to patients like herself.
“I just focused on the zebras, I focused on the weird patients that didn't have clear diagnoses,” she said. “I've been writing about our stories."
Kelly’s social media pseudonym is “The Write Assistant,” and online, she connects with patients all around the world. Now through her essays, she aims to offer them hope.
“It compares and contrasts the idea that when we're desperate in medicine, we all pray to somebody, and who is actually listening is the clinicians,” she said.
Kelly believes listening is the most important aspect of medical work. She hopes to reassure others that there are many care providers offering a compassionate ear.
“I think that the American health care system has a long way to go. But the people that are still in it, we care, we're still here, we're still listening,” Kelly said. “For so long, I felt angry and bitter. Nobody found out what was wrong with me. I didn't find out what was wrong with me. But by examining the patients’ stories, it made me realize now there's still a lot of good to be found even in the trauma.”
