Lorna Breen

Lorna Margaret Breen (October 9, 1970 – April 26, 2020)^[1] was an American physician who was the emergency room director at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. She died by suicide in 2020, while taking a break with family in Charlottesville, Virginia during the coronavirus pandemic.

Lorna Breen
Born	Lorna Margaret Breen (1970-10-09)October 9, 1970 Charlottesville, Virginia, United States
Died	April 26, 2020(2020-04-26) (aged 49) Charlottesville, Virginia
Occupation	Physician

Early life

NewYork-Presbyterian Allen hospital where Lorna Breen worked

Breen was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, and raised in Danville, Pennsylvania.^[2] She graduated from Wyoming Seminary in 1988.^[3] She received a master's degree at Cornell University and attended Medical College of Virginia before doing a residency at Long Island Jewish Medical Center.^[4][5]

Career

Breen worked in The Allen Hospital at the NewYork-Presbyterian, where during spring of 2020 she treated patients with COVID-19. She contracted the virus herself then went back to work after isolating for a week and a half. On a family break in Charlottesville, Virginia, she died by suicide on April 26, 2020.^[6][7] Her father said: "She was truly in the trenches of the frontline. She tried to do her job, and it killed her [...] Make sure she’s praised as a hero. Because she was, she’s a casualty just as much as anyone else who has died."^[8]

Selected works

• Breen, Lorna M. (1 September 1999). "What Should I Do If My Patient Does Not Speak English?". JAMA. 282 (9): 819. doi:10.1001/jama.282.9.819-JMS0901-3-1. PMID 10478684.
• Chang, Bernard P.; Cato, Kenrick Dwain; Cassai, Mary; Breen, Lorna (November 2019). "Clinician burnout and its association with team based care in the Emergency Department". The American Journal of Emergency Medicine. 37 (11): 2113–2114. doi:10.1016/j.ajem.2019.06.032. PMC 6917942. PMID 31255426.
• Brener, Michael I.; Tung, Jen; Stant, Jennifer; Sayan, Osman R.; Suh, Edward H.; Minutello, Robert M.; Sharma, Rahul; Brener, Sorin J.; Melniker, Lawrence A.; Moustakakis, Emmanuel N.; Neuberg, Gerald; Breen, Lorna M.; Nutovits, Ronald; Kats, Yuliya; Amaranto, Andrew; Pucillo, Anthony; Kirtane, Ajay J.; Rabbani, LeRoy E. (December 2019). "An Updated Healthcare System-Wide Clinical Pathway for Managing Patients With Chest Pain and Acute Coronary Syndromes". Critical Pathways in Cardiology. 18 (4): 167–175. doi:10.1097/HPC.0000000000000189. PMID 31725507. S2CID 208036312.

References

1. "A Doctor's Emergency". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on 17 April 2021. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
2. "Dr. Lorna M. Breen was born and raised in Danville". The Express. Archived from the original on 2020-05-06. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
3. Hallikaar, Viktoria (2020-04-29). "Wyoming Seminary alumni react to suicide of NYC doctor, former classmate". WOLF. Archived from the original on 2022-08-26. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
4. Corina Knoll; Ali Watkins; Michael Rothfeld (July 11, 2020). "'I Couldn't Do Anything': The Virus and an E.R. Doctor's Suicide". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 9, 2022. Retrieved August 26, 2022.
5. "Doctor directory – Lorna M. Breen M.D." Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Archived from the original on April 28, 2020.
6. Watkins, Ali; Rothfeld, Michael; Rashbaum, William K.; Rosenthal, Brian M. (2020-04-27). "Top E.R. Doctor Who Treated Virus Patients Dies by Suicide". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2020-05-09. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
7. Iati, Marisa; Bellware, Kim (2020-04-29). "NYC emergency doctor dies by suicide, underscoring a secondary danger of the pandemic". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2020-05-01. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
8. Evelyn, Kenya (April 28, 2020). "New York ER doctor who treated coronavirus patients dies by suicide". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 5, 2020. Retrieved May 7, 2020.

External links

• Sister Of ER Doctor Who Died By Suicide: She 'Couldn't Help Enough People' on YouTube, Today