A Letter Of Thanks One Year Later

As many of you will remember, we closed our clinic on March 15, 2020, when the COVID pandemic started to overwhelm our country and our state. At that time, the fear of “asymptomatic transmission” was looming; patients were not to be seen without the proper protective equipment, and only in an emergency per a state mandate. Finding those PPE supplies was nearly impossible then, and those materials had to be given over to the state per the Governor’s orders. We decided that the risk for patient and team safety outweighed the need to remain in service. We donated our PPE to the state and suspended patient care. I never thought I would hang a sign like this on my clinic’s door, but I went through three revisions of it over the course of the next 45 days, extending the closure date each time as conditions worsened.

Thankfully, with enough protective equipment available, more knowledge regarding the virus’ transmission coming from the CDC, and having developed thorough patient movement protocols to safely have patients in the clinic again, we reopened our clinic on May 5, 2020. In making that decision, we took into consideration the safety and health of everyone that we treated, of our families, and of ourselves. But we had faith in our protocols, in our knowledge of viral containment and sanitation, and in the scientific research being performed by the CDC and OHA to combat COVID-19.Today, one year later, it is with the deepest sincerity that I thank each of you–our patients–who have returned to our clinic for your care and treatment. There is no better feeling as a physician than knowing that your patients trust you not only to listen to their problems and resolve their injuries, but also to protect them from any form of harm. To those patients who are new to our clinic and came in after we reopened last year, thank you for putting your trust and faith in our clinic’s protocols and safety measures when you were unfamiliar with our clinic. To all of our patients, thank you for respecting our safety measures, working with us to do the right thing for everyone involved in the clinic, and for letting others know that you felt safe and secure coming in for treatment. The amount of support we have received over the last year has been immense, and we will never be able to express our appreciation enough.

Finally, I want to thank the talented and devoted members of my team in the clinic. Thank you for your dedication to the patients that we serve. Thank you for working together to develop the protocols that we implemented in the beginning and still use today. And thank you for helping each other through the dark days in the beginning, knowing that there would be a light at the end of this long tunnel. To you, I owe you my deepest respect and my unending gratitude. You are my colleagues and my friends, and I could not be more blessed than to work with each of you.

While we are not out of this tunnel yet, we are so much closer to that light at the end than we were a year ago. Please take care of yourselves, continue to do your part to defeat this virus, and thank you for being part of our clinic.

Sincerely,
Seth Alley, DC, CCSP