Just after 6:30 on a recent morning, Dr. Henry Nikicicz, an anesthesiologist in Texas, finished an emergency intubation of a man in his 70s who was suffering severe respiratory distress. Stepping out of an elevator after finishing the procedure, Dr. Nikicicz put his respirator face mask back on when he saw a group of people walking down the hallway toward him — reflexively trying to protect himself, and them, should anyone have been infected by the coronavirus. In the days that followed, Dr. Nikicicz said, he was told that his job was at risk because policy at the hospital where he works, University Medical Center in El Paso, prohibited the use of protective masks in the hallways. A healthcare worker visits an emergency field hospital in Central Park during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York City, on March 31. A yard sign reminds neighbors about good social distancing practices during the COVID-19 pandemic on March 31, in Lakewood, Colorado. Health officials spray disinfectant in a Kampung Baru, traditional Malay village, in Kuala Lumpur city center as a safety precaution against the new coronavirus, on March 31. The Malaysian government issued a restricted movement order to the public for the rest of the month to help curb the spread of the virus. (Pictured) A man walks his dog past graffiti calling for people to wash their hands to combat the spread of the coronavirus, in Belfast, Northern Ireland on March, 30. Spanish Royal Guard soldiers disinfect a hospital to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus in Madrid, Spain on March 29. A Christ the Redeemer statue made from sand is pictured with protective mask in Copacabana beach during the coronavirus outbreak, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on March 28. On Tuesday Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a leading member of the federal government’s coronavirus response task force, told CNN that the C.D.C. When Dr. Nikicicz insisted on wearing a mask, he received a text from his boss, the chief of anesthesia, accusing him of overreacting. Administrators at a different hospital in Seattle, the Cherry Hills campus of Swedish Medical Center, threatened to indefinitely suspend an anesthesiologist, Dr. Oliver Small, for wearing a surgical mask when not directly involved in patient care, such as walking the hallway. “He got called into meetings with administration of Swedish because they don’t want to panic employees into thinking they need to wear masks for protection,” Dr. Small’s wife, Jessica Green, wrote on Facebook last week. “He is wearing a surgical mask as a precaution in case he is an asymptomatic carrier of Covid, as many people are, and he does not want to risk infection inuninfected patients.” The hospital asked him to attend a meeting in which administrators told Dr. Small he could take off the mask or stop coming to work, Ms. Green wrote, adding, “What is wrong with our health care system????!! The intensifying tension falls into a larger context: In recent years, doctors have felt increasingly like employees working for cost-cutting companies putting profit ahead of medicine. We’ll take a lot,” said Dr. Christopher Garofalo, a family doctor in North Attleboro, Mass, who holds several regional leadership positions in medicine, including serving as the state’s delegate to the American Medical Association. More than half of physicians now are employees of hospitalsystems or big groups, he said, a systemic change that has left doctors feeling less empowered and frustrated. Dr. Jim Merlino, a top administrator and the chief transformation officer at the Cleveland Clinic, said the language was “not good communication.” He also said that while he was aware that some doctors at his institution and around the country were frustrated, he contended the vast majority were not.
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