'He worked on the front lines to the end': New York physician who delayed retiring dies of virus

As the nation fumbles its response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, first responders—including medical and janitorial staff—are under an immense amount of pressure. There are reports of physicians and nurses around the world dying from the virus already, which is especially concerning as some healthcare professionals report not having enough personal protective equipment. As The New York Times reports, pulmonologist James Mahoney, an ICU physician who put off his retirement to help fight the pandemic, died of the virus on April 27.

At the age of 62, Mahoney had already put in 40 years of service as a physician. As the Times reports, Mahoney treated patients during the AIDS epidemic, after 9/11, and after Hurricane Sandy. During the pandemic, he continued holding virtual appointments with his regular patients. More than that, he also worked night shifts at Kings County Hospital Center as well as day shifts in an ICU at the University Hospital of Brooklyn, a low-income, public hospital. These hospitals being across the street from one another might have enabled the logistics, but as colleagues and family members express since his death, Mahoney’s deep love and passion for medicine were likely what made his relentless effort to save lives possible.

His older brother, Dr. Melvin Mahoney, said that James “worked on the front lines to the end.” James Mahoney ultimately passed at Tisch Hospital in Manhattan, where some of his colleagues traveled with him from Brooklyn after he’d been at the University Hospital.

Office manager Michelle King told the Times that even after Mahoney fell ill, he still called patients to check up on them. King told the outlet that Mahoney healed people’s “minds and their souls” as well as their bodies.

Latin Salam, a physician of internal medicine at SUNY Downstate, told the Times: “As a young black man, I looked at this guy and said to myself, ‘Twenty years from now I want to be like him.’” That’s no small thing, either, given that Black Americans—and especially Black men—are deeply underrepresented in medicine overall. 

If the University Hospital of Brooklyn sounds familiar, that’s because you might remember, as the Times covered in a separate piece, that the hospital was in rough financial shape even before the pandemic hit. One resident physician, for example, reportedly created a GoFundMe to raise money for personal protective equipment. Dr. Robert Foronjy, chief of pulmonary and critical care at the hospital, told the paper he did not believe they had actually lost patients due to the lack of resources, but that the current facilities make it all the harder to actually treat patients. How bad is it? As the Times reported in late April, in one ICU unit, duct tape and plastic tarp separated patients.

You can check out some local coverage of the late Dr. Mahoney below.

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