When a patient who has been battling coronavirus for weeks or months is finally well enough to be discharged from Rush Foundation Hospital, a “Code Victory” is called over the intercom system as the floor’s nurses, doctors and staff assemble in the hallway to send the patient home.

Those victory codes, or success stories, are what keeps hundreds of physically and emotionally exhausted local healthcare workers going each day as the Covid-19 pandemic drags into its second year.

“People go into the medical field to make a difference, and when we are able to send those patients home, it is a real sense of accomplishment. It is really very rewarding,” said Dr. Fred Duggan, chief medical officer for Rush Health Systems.

Dr. Lindsey Prewitt, medical director of Hospitalist Services for Anderson Regional Medical Center, agrees, calling it “thrilling” when a patient who has struggled with the virus is able to go home.

“Those sorts of wins are enough to keep you going until there is another win,” she noted, “and it is really important to all of us working in healthcare to have those wins.” 

For the past 11 months, Dr. Prewitt and Dr. Duggan, like other healthcare workers and hospital staff in the community, have been battling against Covid-19 and putting themselves at risk to give patients their best shot at surviving this deadly disease.

Because their efforts have really made a difference, Dr. Prewitt and Dr. Duggan are the 2020 Meridian Star Citizens of the Year.

“I was very surprised and shocked and honored to be named Citizen of the Year,” said Dr. Prewitt. “There are so many people who I have watched do good work and bring good attitudes to the hospital every day over the past year so, in my mind, I am acknowledging this on behalf of everyone at Anderson’s who has been working so hard during this pandemic.”

Dr. Duggan, too, recognized all of his co-workers for the work they have been doing day-in and day-out since last March.

“It is really an honor to be named Citizen of the Year, but the way I look at it, the real Citizens of the Year are the people who are going into the rooms every day,” he said.

“I do take care of Covid patients, and I am there every day, but when you go back to the beginning of the epidemic in March and April of last year, housekeeping, x-ray techs, laboratory people, nurses, they have all been walking into the fire every day,” he added. “I am awed and inspired by what they are doing every single day.”

Growing up in Jackson, Dr. Duggan knew by the time he was a teenager that he wanted to be a doctor, the first in his family. A distant relative who happened to be a neurosurgeon allowed the young 14-year-old to accompany him to the hospital one day and observe a surgery case up close.

“It was a different era then,” laughed Dr. Duggan.

That observation was all it took; the teen was hooked.

“I fell in love with medicine at that age and sort of pursued it almost like a calling,” he recalled. “I went to college, then straight to medical school, and then straight to training. I was kind of obsessed with the field of medicine.”

Dr. Duggan graduated from the University of Mississippi School of Medicine in 1987. He then completed a three-year residency in internal medicine at University Hospital followed by a two-year pulmonary fellowship. He is board certified in pulmonary disease and internal medicine.

He interviewed with clinics and hospitals throughout the Southeast, but wanted to stay close to Jackson, where his mother lived. After a long conversation with Dr. William Reid, a pulmonologist with Internal Medicine Clinic, he moved to Meridian in 1992 to work at IMC. He joined the staff of Rush Foundation Hospital a few years ago as chief medical officer.

Meanwhile, Dr. Prewitt was never convinced at a young age that medical school was in her future despite having a father who was a doctor and a mother who was a school counselor.

“As I finished my degree in biology at Wake Forest (University), I needed to plan what the next step was going to be,” she recalled. “As I was looking into things like research careers and genetics, I just kept thinking that I would rather be the doctor.”

She ended up deciding in her senior year of college that medical school was the route she was going to take.

“It turned out to be a good intersection between what I loved about science and what I loved about people and my desire to help people, which was always going to be an important part of my career,” she added.

Dr. Prewitt graduated from UNC School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1997. She completed an internship at Washington University and has received board certification from the American Board of Internal Medicine.

She worked as an internal medicine specialist and hospitalist in Arkansas before moving to Meridian about 10 years ago when her husband, Kendrick Prewitt, joined the faculty at the University of West Alabama as an English professor. He currently serves as chair of the Department of Language and Literature.

Dr. Prewitt has worked as a hospitalist at Anderson Regional Medical Center since arriving in Meridian and now serves as medical director of Hospitalist Services. 

The past 12 months have been a frightening year, a dark year and a learning year for everyone working in healthcare.

As of Feb. 2, Mississippi has reported 277,322 positive COVID—19 test results since the pandemic began and 6,158 deaths, according to Mississippi State Department of Health data and reports. Of those positive cases, 6,425 of them were reported in Lauderdale County, including 439 cases in long-term care facilities. 

As the coronavirus quickly spread unnoticed throughout the state last March and April, Lauderdale County was one of the earliest counties hit. Mask requirements and lockdowns were initiated here before many areas of the state. The county had the highest number of deaths last spring, and still has the third highest in the state with 212 as of Feb. 2.

Dr. Duggan acknowledges he originally thought the Covid-19 outbreak would be like a “sprint.” Healthcare workers would attack the known cases while the numbers were low to keep the virus from spreading as people practiced social distancing, wearing masks and staying home.

“The one thing early on that I did not understand was that this wasn’t a sprint, it was a marathon,” he said.

Now, almost a year later, the burden of putting on layers of personal protective equipment – an N-95 mask, face shield, gown, shoe coverings and double gloves – is almost second nature to hospital staff, Dr. Duggan said.

But the stress from caring for fearful, severely ill patients who are separated from their families and support system, all while watching the death toll climb and the virus become more unpredictable, is leaving healthcare workers emotionally and physically exhausted.

“The length of time and the severity of the illness has taken a toll on our workforce,” Dr. Duggan said. “They are tired. It is an emotional thing to go through and it is a physical thing to go through taking care of Covid patients. They have been doing it for almost a year.”

He said Rush has reached out to employees to let them know if they have any problems, then the hospital has resources to help them.

During his downtime from work, Dr. Duggan enjoys spending time with his family and going on long walks with his beloved dog, Rudy, who is age 8. 

He and his wife, Melissa, have three children: a son, Gane, 26, who works in finance in New York with ICR Capital although he has been working remotely from New Orleans due to the pandemic; a daughter Clancy, 21, who is a senior majoring in chemical engineering at the University of Notre Dame; and daughter, Morgan, 20, who is a sophomore majoring in graphic design with a minor in computer at the University of Alabama.

He said one of the biggest challenges during the early months of the pandemic was the loneliness of being quarantined away from his family. He chose to live in his Meridian home while they remained in a family home in another town.

“During the beginning, we were all so scared that we just stayed away from our families,” he said. “I spent about three months working every day without having my family to come home to,” he said. “The loneliness was the biggest thing to overcome in the early months.”

To help her relieve stress after a challenging day at the hospital, Dr. Prewitt loves to read, especially mystery series. She walks her dog. She also recently re-taught herself how to knit, a hobby she first learned in college.

“I had a few hours, and I thought, ‘I wonder if I can still do that,’” she said. “I could not still do that, but I re-learned how to do it.”

She believes the new year has been a time for a lot of people, regardless of their field, to step back, take a deep breath, and think about ‘What can I do? What do I have time to do now that I didn’t have time to do before? And that is what led me to the knitting,” she laughed.

Dr. Prewitt also enjoys spending time with her husband and children. The couple’s eldest son, James, 20, is a sophomore at Tulane University. Daughter Caroline is a senior at Lamar School, and youngest son, Henry, 13, is a seventh grader at Northwest Middle School. 

“My husband and kids have been very important to me and a constant source of love and entertainment,” she said. “They have taken on more responsibilities around the house … and that has been a big help to me.”

Looking ahead in 2021, Dr. Duggan acknowledges that there are still difficult months to come due to Covid-19, but as more people are vaccinated, hope for a return to normal lives starts to emerge.

“We really believe that we have some time ahead of us in the depths of the pandemic,” he said. “But we really hope and believe that the second half of the year is going to be a bounce back to normal times as we get more and more people vaccinated.”

Dr. Prewitt said she is remaining cautiously optimistic about 2021.

“Just having a vaccine is such a remarkable scientific achievement to have done that so quickly,” she said.

Dr. Prewitt felt overjoyed after receiving her first dose of the vaccine because she felt a little relief knowing her personal risks are now lower. 

“It was just such a feeling of joy when I got that first shot,” she said. “Even though it is not going to change what I do. I am still going to have masks falling out of every pocket. I will still have to be careful not to carry this to someone else.

“But knowing my personal risks are lower has really been a blessing,” she added. “I am hoping that as the vaccine is distributed widely, then everybody can have that comfort, especially grandparents and older people who I think, as a demographic, have been the best at following the rules about social distancing and masking. They have been so isolated, so hopefully we will be able to enlarge our bubble pretty soon.

“Of course, no prediction I have made about Covid has been right,” she said. “But I know that God is good, and things will be okay.”