Transcendients: Memorial to Healthcare Workers
Died 19 September 2020
ADELINE MARIE FAGAN
RACE/ETHNICITY White
OCCUPATION OB-GYN Resident
LOCATION Houston, TX
AGE 28
CONCERNS ABOUT ADEQUATE PPE? Yes
OB-GYN resident gave grace to patients
Dr. Adeline “Addie” Fagan was the second of four sisters, all pursuing or considering careers in the medical field. Her younger sibling, Maureen, 23, joined her on two medical mission trips to Haiti and saw firsthand the “grace” she brought to uncomfortable or embarrassing moments for patients.
“Addie was very much, ‘Do you understand? Do you have other questions? I will go over this with you a million times if need be,’” her sister said.
Maureen said her sister, an OB-GYN resident, had a comic side and among her colleagues was considered “most likely to be found skipping and singing down the hall to a delivery”.
In July, Addie worked a rotation in the emergency department at HCA Houston Healthcare West. She tested positive for Covid-19 that month. The facility’s chief medical officer, Dr Emily Sedgwick, said the hospital’s policies mandated that staff receive a new mask at the start of each shift. But Maureen said her sister reused an N95 mask with her name written on it “for weeks and weeks, if not months and months”.
After over two months in hospital, much of the time hooked up to a ventilator and an ECMO device, Fagan suffered a massive brain haemorrhage, possibly because her vascular system had been weakened by the virus.
“We spent the remaining minutes hugging, comforting and talking to Adeline,” her father, Brant, wrote on a blog. “And then the world stopped.”
— Alastair Gee