Beyond Coronavirus: the metamorphosis as the essence of the phenomenon

This paper is an insight on a front-line doctor’s experience of Coronavirus in Italy, in an Internal Medicine ward transformed to a COVID-19 ward. Using content analysis were analyzed 52 destructurated interviews to “Covid clinicians” in the “Ospedale dei Castelli” hospital structure in Rome, Italy. Thematic analysis was performed to recognize common topics in the interviews. Finally, a correlation between the 5 Ovid’s forces (love and thirst for knowledge—positive ones—anger, envy and fear—negative ones) and Narrative Medicine scenarios (Physician and Patients, Physician and Society, Physician and Self, Physician and Colleagues) is described. Coronavirus is a “tsunami” by confrontation with the poet Ovid’s five driving forces. Covid-19 never gave health-workers a chance to draw breath for a moment themselves, as presentation and treatment hypotheses changed at dizzying speed, constantly forcing them to modify and adapt established procedures and behavior as the pandemic evolved. Every scenarios present a correlation with at least one positive and one negative force (Physician and Patients: love and anger, Physician and Self: Fear and Thirst for Knowledge, Physician and Colleagues: Thirst for Knowledge and Envy, Physician and Society: Love, Fear and Anger). Many healthcare workers who came face-to-face with the magnitude of this emergency are able in some way to contextualize the social implications of this experience, which paradoxically has some positive aspects, having let them discover newfound courage, resourcefulness, and hope. Negative forces result from too strong positive emotions and they are a signal of deteriorated relationships and an alarm bell of clinician’s burn-out. Covid era has been defined by the lack of emergency preparedness, together with lack of international coordination and media reports generating terror. People can defeat Covid by combatting against terror of the heart, by finding passion and courage and by dealing honestly with the fear of disease and death.