Brittany Walker ’19
Nurse, Labor & Delivery Unit
Medstar Washington Hospital Center
Brittany Walker ’19 is a nurse in the labor and delivery unit at Medstar Washington Hospital Center. There are regular patients as well as some COVID-19 patients in the unit.
She says, “I have always wanted to be in nursing because I was raised with a grandmother and great- grandmother who were in and out of hospitals a lot with health issues. The people that helped me with all of that were nurses. Plus, as a nurse, I wanted to be part of lowering the mortality rate for infants and moms in the DMV-especially among African American moms.”
“It’s pretty scary out there now,” she says. “But I don’t want to change my job. No one knows what is going on with this, and with new information always coming out, it makes us change our protocols along with the CDC standards. Our management team works hard to protect us so we can work hard to help patients.” She says they are always gowning up, wearing gloves and masks, and making sure they are protected.
She wants people to know this is not a joke, not a hoax. “People are losing their lives. I want to go out and enjoy life too, but you need to stay healthy, wash your hands, and keep social distancing. The average age I see in COVID-19 patients are ones in their late 20s to early 30s. You can get this. A lot of people are getting sick, and young people are getting sick, too.”