Come on! I know how "hard" medicine can be. You are missing my point. If this is a damned emergency, then it is all hands on deck. Before any radiologist or shrink goes into a residency they are a fucking MD, or DO as the case may be. Oh and you don't have to be helpful in ICU, where you may be a fish out of water. To your specific example, I don't need a brother in law MD or a nurse spouse to know that radiology is critical in COVID care due to the effect on the respiratory system. Again, to follow your example, I think the psychologists might be helpful to the stressed out health care workers and the family of victims that can't be at a bed side while their loved one slowly dies. The MEs are more than capable to doing biopsies and researching the actual causes of death (dying with or because of the virus). And that is keeping them in their specialty. If they ain't working at their regular hospitals or their practice is slow they can help. Don't make excuses for them. Unless, of course, the hospitals aren't as bad as they are making it out to be. Pickle gave the best analogy. If I had to I'd put a flight attendant in the right seat to put the gear down, read a checklist and scream at me if I got too low. So yes, I'll take your brother in law if the alternative is no doc or even a better qualified one dangerously fatigued.
Over 20 years married to an RN/BSN and 13 years as a medevac pilot myself say you are off target. If you had a brother in law MD, or especially a nurse spouse, you might have heard not just one or two stories, but dealt with them coming home an emotional wreck at the end of the day for weeks at a time because someone who shouldn't have died, did die as a result of poor decisions, hospital manning, etc..The hospital lawyers up and throws the doctors and nurses to the legal and emotional sharks to cover the hospital's ass. When people f$%# up decisions, they will do what they can to hide any facts revealing that they were advised to the contrary.These ground floor professionals really are on their own when this sort of thing happens. You would know this if you were married to a health care professional for any period of time.
This is important to grasp, because the decisions being made are not cut and dry as you have suggested. Labor and delivery personnel ARE being asked to man ER and ICU, and similar reassignments, without ONE SINGLE COVID-19 patient at the hospital! Half the staff is sent home to prepare for reassignment to other areas, then sit at home for a week and a half doing nothing. The remaining staff works overtime. Sill, no COVID-19 patients. The remaining staff asks for training for the upcoming new responsibilities they will be assigned (still short handed). Is the hospital acting on it? Nope. The number of health care professionals who quit not just their job's but their entire professions because of this kind of BS and stress may surprise you.
"So yes, I'll take your brother in law if the alternative is no doc or even a better qualified one dangerously fatigued."
And then your family will sue the living shit out of the hospital, doctors and nurses because you died, were brain damaged, or otherwise did not receive the quality of care you deserved. The nurses and doctors are left to deal with the stress, and maybe lose their license or are forced to leave the profession, all because they were just responding to "All hands on deck!" in a way they knew was not right, but they had no choice. They live with this day in and day out. The people writing in chalk on the streets today, praising the nurses and calling them heroes, will be calling Farah and Farah tomorrow wanting to know where their $$$$ is, should they suffer an
injustice at the hands of a medical professional.
While some of your points are legitimate, you lack the same perspective gained only by being exposed day-in and day-out to the profession, or having someone in your household who is. I'm certainly not making excuses for them. I'm telling you how it is, because clearly you have strong misconceptions.
