In January 2020, Qin Li, MD, postdoctoral associate in medicine (pulmonary), traveled to China to renew her visa. While that was intended to be a two-week trip, Li and her family have been unable to return to the U.S.
Wanting to assist her Yale-PCCSM family in Connecticut, Li started to collect personal protective equipment (PPE).
“It is my great honor that I can do something to help in this situation because I got so much help from our section and Naftali,” explained Li. “Thanks to Jennifer and the volunteer team who helped people get the masks. I will try my best to help if more is needed.”
Li shipped the 750+ masks to New Haven and to Jennifer Caprio, senior administrative assistant 2 (pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine) who recruited volunteers Kadi-Ann Rose, Joe DeIuliis, Helen Siuzdak, and Jim Martone to create a drive-through mask pickup. The masks are not intended to replace PPE supplied by the hospital for work purposes, but rather to keep everyone safe if/when they need to run errands. The team set up by the TAC loading dock and gave three surgical masks and one KN95 mask to the 75 PCCSM members who came by.
“Despite the brief hello from a distance, it was wonderful to see my colleagues, their genuine smiles, and hearing ‘we’re doing ok’ and ‘we’ll all get through this’,” said Caprio.
Caprio is working on mailing masks to those who could not attend.
“We will get through this together,” echoed Li.