The New York City doctor diagnosed with Ebola after returning from West Africa is being cared for by a team of doctors and nurses drawn primarily from Bellevue Hospital Center’s intensive care unit who volunteered for the job, officials said Sunday.
The stakes are getting higher for this team as Craig Spencer moved into a more serious phase of his illness, Bellevue officials said. While Dr. Spencer, 33 years old, was tolerating treatment well and had a good night’s sleep, he is now listed in “serious but stable condition,” is suffering gastrointestinal problems and is getting plasma therapy treatment, officials said at a Sunday news conference.
His care is being directed by Laura Evans, a physician who runs critical care at Bellevue. Dr. Evans, who graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1999, is a well-liked doctor at the hospital who is up to the task, colleagues said.
She began as the director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit in 2006 and became director of critical care in 2009, officials said.Eric Manheimer, the medical director at Bellevue from 1997 to 2012 and author of “Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital,” described Dr. Evans as a diligent physician with a “dry sense of humor” who moved quickly up the ranks. “She’s young, but she’s got a very mature approach and deals very effectively with everyone,” he said.
Dr. Evans was named “physician of the year” at Bellevue this year.
While she cares for Dr. Spencer, Dr. Evans has been consulting regularly with colleagues around the country who have experience overseeing Ebola patients, including hospital workers at Emory University Hospital in Georgia and Nebraska Medical Center, where Ebola patients were treated earlier this year.
She couldn’t be reached for comment and a family member declined to comment.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the Bellevue staff has a “battle-tested” spirit, noting that the hospital helped during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, among other disasters. He said he visited the isolation floor recently and found the team to be “purposeful, sober, straightforward.”
“They are the Marines of our health-care system,” he said. “The eyes of the world are on the isolation floor at Bellevue Hospital, and the people who work there were calm and cool and collected.”