BROOKLINE, Mass. — Dealing with the all the pain and suffering from COVID pushed one local ICU doctor to his breaking point.
Although there were always challenges in the ICU, Dr. Lakshman Swamy says the pandemic destroyed much of what he loved about it. “It went from being this warm place, a place that was just full of life, to be cold and sterile and just watching people die. It was a bad time.”
Dr. Swamy added that losing so many people created a feeling of being powerless.
“We really felt like we we’re kind of destined for this moment, and I think what happened was that we quickly learned, as the whole world learned, that this was not one moment.”
The pulmonologist from Brookline found an interesting outlet to help him rejuvenate his love for the ICU.
He created a board game called “Critical Care”. It captures the work done in the ICU before COVID overwhelmed those units.
Each player gets a patient profile with a chart and learns how to make the person better by utilizing a wide swath of specialists and therapies.
Anyone 14 years and up learns how an ICU works, how patient complications are handled, and basically what it takes to make a patient healthy again.
For Dr. Swamy, working on the cards and making difficult concepts accessible to everyone, kind of saved his life.
“Honestly, every time I think about it I look back and say Thank God, I had this thing to work on, because it was like a life vest for me,” added Dr. Swamy.
The prototype of the game was created with $75,000 raised on Kickstarter.
Swamy says reviews have been good so far. “People have so much fun playing this game, people who have no idea about medicine. . . That’s my dream, to have a family be able to sit down and play this game. I want them to have fun.”
And along the way, Dr. Swamy hopes it can ignite a passion for care in a younger generation. “I really hope that a teenager who plays it is inspired to say he, maybe I could be a respiratory therapist and save lives, maybe I could be a doctor or a nurse, whatever.”
Critical Care should be available for sale in the spring.
While the first version of the game is geared to players 14 years and up, Dr. Swamy says he plans to work on a second version for younger kids.
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