Photographer-turned-nurse Karen Cunningham talks about using her camera to capture what life is like for doctors and nurses working in units treating COVID-19. She followed her friend and colleague Cady Chaplin over two days at Lenox Hill Hospital. Chaplin joins us as well. Her portfolio, "A City Nurse," appears in the May 4 issue of The New Yorker.

Karen Cunningham's photos for the New Yorker below: 

Intensive-care nurse Cady Chaplin.(Karen Cunningham for the New Yorker )

 

Orthopedic residents and a physical therapist, recruited to work in intensive care during the pandemic, turn a COVID-19 patient on his stomach so that he can breathe more easily. Patients are flipped every sixteen hours, by a team of five people.(Karen Cunningham for the New Yorker )

 

Dr. David Butler performs an ultrasound on the lungs of a patient with acute respiratory distress, to assess the risks of intubation.(Karen Cunningham for the New Yorker )

 

Chaplin claps during the seven-o’clock tribute to health-care professionals and other workers. “I think it’s cathartic for people to let it all out for two minutes,” she says.(Karen Cunningham for the New Yorker )