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Royal Vic ICU: the faces behind the PPE

Adamo Donovan, PhD student with Dr. Benjamin Smith, assists the Royal Victoria Hospital ICU staff and patients through the ICU Bridge Program

Thanks to the initiative of Adamo Donovan, PhD student with Dr. Benjamin Smith, the staff of the MUHC Royal Victoria Hospital ICU Department are now sharing their identity with colleagues and patients despite their PPE. With a photo of their face pinned to the outside of their PPE, staff are now able to clearly identify each other beyond their eye color. Here is an excerpt from the CBC article of July 4, 2020: Faces hidden due to PPE, Royal Victoria ICU nurses don portraits of themselves:

“The nurses of the MUHC’s Royal Victoria Hospital intensive-care unit are now wearing pictures of themselves so that patients and colleagues can recognize them through their face masks, shields and hospital gowns. They took inspiration from American artist Mary Beth Heffernan, who during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Liberia spearheaded the PPE Portrait Project there. The driving force behind the McGill University Health Centre initiative was Adamo Donovan, a PhD student and the co-founder of the ICU Bridge Program, which helps university students volunteer in intensive care.”

To read the article and watch the associated video: