Lawrence resident Dr. Neal Feit is one of Northwell’s ‘superheroes’

Right after Passover, Dr. Neal Feit, an internal medicine specialist who lives in Lawrence and practices in Valley Stream, was redeployed to Long Island Jewish Valley Stream Hospital as the peak of the coronavirus pandemic was beginning to ebb.

Feit, 48, who graduated from New York University Medical College in 1999, applied his more than 20 years of experience as a primary care physician, which includes affiliations with hospital including North Shore University Hospital and NYU Hospitals Center to the United States’ first pandemic in more than 100 years. 

“Getting up to speed on the most up-to-date information was made easier in which the hospital coordinated with the health care providers,” said Feit, adding that not only was he working through the pandemic, but his niece contracted the virus. She recovered. “The first week in terms of there was really a lot of information we’ve been getting from the health system,” he said, meaning Northwell. “It was well organized and they were pro-active about getting it on the floor.”

The firsts days and weeks of the pandemic were nerve-wracking and scary, Feit said, noting that not everything that people needed to know about the virus was known. “No one had ever seen a medical crisis like this, I didn’t think it was this crazy,” he said. “There are analogies being made to war. The people in the ICU [intensive care unit], they really went out of their comfort zone.”

Working in the medical field, Feit said many knew the health crisis was coming, but that did not make them any less anxious about the precautions they had to take. “People were nervous staying six feet away, using stethoscopes and cleaning them with alcohol and using antiseptic wipes on chairs. At home, I changed in the garage. It was weird and nerve-wracking. I tested negative and kept with up with the protocols.”

Despite the anxiety and the need to stay on top of the changing information – remember hydroxychloroquine? Feit, like many first responders, said this is what he does. “I looked at this like this my job to take care of people,” he said. “As a child, I wanted to help people and not have them feel helpless.”     

Dr. Joseph Marino, medical director of Long Island Jewish Valley Stream, said that when Queens became the epicenter of the pandemic, his hospital along with LIJ Forest Hills and LIJ Medical Center “were in the eye of the storm.” Northwell put in a place a system that relieved patient volume by having the system’s 23 hospital take patients. LIJ Valley stream transferred out 360 patients to sister facilities during the surge. That enabled staff to provide the needed level of care to those admitted, he said.

“Superheroes are made during a crisis like this and you never know who’s going to manifest that cape,” Marino said about all the health care providers. “Elective surgery was canceled. There were many clinicians at home. Within days I received many texts and emails from my surgical colleagues asking how they can help. Paraphrasing one of my orthopedists: “How can I help the hospital. I just can’t hide at home anymore.”

For Feit his mental health fared better than he thought as he was busy, his wife, an occupational therapist, was not working. “At least I was able to get see and talk to other people,” he said. “By the time I left it was a Covid-free floor.”   

The experience was daunting but it also added to Feit’s education as a doctor. “We learned what we could do in a short period of time,” he said. “Who knows where things will be in the fall. We set into motion these studies and protocols and came out with more knowledge.”