Dr. Ennis '06 Fighting COVID-19 in Cook County

When Patrick Ennis graduated from New York Medical College, he never anticipated being on the front lines fighting a new pandemic. But his work at the Cook County Jail in Chicago has placed him right in the center of this global fight.

Dr. Ennis is one of several providers tasked with managing primary care at Cook County Jail, where detainees wait for trial after being arrested. During his three years there, he has expanded that work into urgent care as well and also included prenatal care and medication assisted treatment (MAT) for substance addiction. In February, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US, at first he thought the jail might be safe. After all, no one in his population was travelling out of the country, a main criteria for diagnosing the disease at that time. However, as things quickly changed, Dr. Ennis was in the middle of a hellish three months. He was immersed in caring for the more than 70 COVID-19 patients in the jail, with at least one per day being sent to hospitals to be ventilated. He and his team were working without a net.
“It was a crazy set of new things, constructing our own guidelines,” Dr. Ennis said. “The CDC lagged behind for correctional institutions so we were on our own.”

Unlike some others working in the medical field, Dr. Ennis was able to go home, though he took precautions to not spread it to his spouse Eduardo and their dog Penny. “I used a basement entrance and before I did anything, I took a shower downstairs that was just for me,” he says, remembering how odd it was to drive to and from work on an empty expressway that would normally be filled with gridlock. “I was very aware of how alone many of our essential personnel were.”

Working with marginalized people was something that Pat sought. For his residency, he sought to train at a community hospital on the outskirts of the west side of Chicago where opioid use and violence are decimating the community. After finishing there, he decided to stay with a vulnerable population and work at the Cook County Jail.

“When I took the job, I knew it would be unique but this has been very different,” he says. “Because we don’t have a treatment for this disease, it’s all about symptomatic management and aggressive monitoring, figuring out how to best isolate patients appropriately within the parameters of the jail.”

He is happy to report that he and his team have seen COVID-19 cases subside substantially. “We now have routine testing at intake and then again two weeks later,” he says. “We’ve been more agile about isolating people and isolating them properly.”

Ennis’ desire to work with those on the margins are rooted in his Prep education. “The Prep is about being a Man for Others and I have tried to think about doing that in my career,” he says. He also credits his Latin classes for helping him through Anatomy in med school. “It definitely made more sense to me than for many of my classmates.”
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