Little Red Church in the Pandemic: Interview with Brita Bruemmer

During the COVID pandemic, parishioner Karin Forno conducted a series of interviews of St. Mary’s folks. She is publishing them as a series over time on the St. Mary’s website. 

Interview with Brita Bruemmer, October 31, 2020

Interviewer: Could you share some background about your career as a physician and your family?

Brita: I'm a family physician and my current job, which has been my job since January 2015, is that I am the medical director and the only M.D. at the Big Sur Health Center, which is 30 miles south from here. I work part time. Over the years, it's been anywhere from two to three, sometimes more days a week. Currently I work two days a week, which is a perfect amount with a beautiful commute and I really love the community down there. We're sort of in the middle of nowhere. It's 30 miles to the nearest hospital or X-ray or urgent care or anything. So we really just serve that local community that live down there, plus the employees of all the resorts, and then the occasional tourist who gets sick or trips over their camp stove and splits their knee open or jumps in the river and cuts their foot on a rock.  I had a guy come in last week who was practicing throwing his knife at a tree to see if it would stick, because somehow he thought that would be cool. And unfortunately the knife bounced off the tree and stabbed him in the arm. So we did some stitches. We get all kinds of interesting stuff down there. And the staff is lovely. I really enjoy the job.

My husband works on the staff at MPC. He works in the Distance Education Department. Our two daughters are now both college graduates. Rebecca, the older one, is twenty-four. She lives with us and works for a company out in Carmel Valley that does native habitat restoration. So she grows plants, and is the nursery manager for that company. And then our younger daughter Alice, just graduated in May, virtually.  She is now working up in Lake Tahoe, for a conservancy district. My mom lives in Merrill Gardens, which is a senior living facility in Monterey. We haven't been in physical contact since March due to COVID. Initially, we were able to visit only through her window while on the phone. And then more recently, because they've instituted some testing and screening protocols, we can meet outdoors six feet apart with masks on. And so that's been lovely. It's much easier to talk in person than over the phone. My sister lives next door, she and her husband, and she's got two grown sons.

Interviewer: How has the pandemic been with your health center?

Brita: Well, we started with the CDC guidelines. We were able to print those out and post them, saying “here’s what we’re going to do.” But we really sort of felt like we were inventing the wheel ourselves to suit our office and situation. We had to come up with protocols for screening, for social distancing in the waiting room, for cleaning the building and wearing masks. It feels like it's really brought the staff together as a team. In fact, we got T-shirts to say “Big Sur Health Center COVID Response Team” because we really have had to do a lot to keep our patients and our staff safe.

Initially, we canceled all regular appointments and we were only seeing acutely ill people. We also set up a testing system for the community. We do asymptomatic testing in our parking lot. People drive up and the staff goes out with full PPE and does testing. That's free or their insurance pays for it, so the people don't have to pay for that. That's been very beneficial to the businesses down there because they wanted their employees to get tested before they started working when they reopened. And then any time we get a positive, we do our own contact tracing, basically, because the health department has been completely overwhelmed. And sometimes when we send in the confidential morbidity report the health department doesn't have the staff to contact the positive patient for up to a week. So we work with the employers to do our own contact tracing and retesting and quarantine instructions. We’ve had to come up with written things and scripts for the staff. And it's been a challenge, but it's been good. So far, knock on wood, none of our employees have been sick. We've probably found about 20 positives and they've all done well. Nobody had to be in the hospital. So that's good.

The other thing that COVID did for us is inspire us to start doing telehealth. We do virtual visits now. It’s been really great, especially for the Medicare patients who need to have their Medicare annual wellness check up, which doesn't involve a physical exam other than vital signs. But if they can check those at home, we can do the entire visit via video and they like it because they don't have to leave their house and we like it because we're not exposing them to anything. Medicare pays for it. Otherwise I don't think we would be telehealth at all. It seemed too hard, too tech-y for a little community health center, but it's really been a great thing and it's working out well. We can do it for mental health follow ups too. So that's been good.

Interviewer: On a day-to-day basis, how would you say the pandemic has affected your life?

Brita: I stay home a lot more. I used to be busier. I used to have to go out more, for shopping or errands or going to do things with friends. I really don't do that any more or a whole lot less of that. I've noticed that I don't buy gas anywhere near as often because I'm not driving around much. Steve and I still go on a bike ride once a week, but we used to go with a group, and now it’s just the two of us. In the spring Alice was home with us because she had to do her senior year at home and then we didn't get to go to her graduation. So that was a big disappointment.

I worked in the yard over the summer! Turns out that it was fun. Alice and I set up a vegetable garden. We grew a bunch of vegetables that were good enough to eat. And then the other big difference is that we can't have my mom over. You know, we used to have her over for dinner or the afternoon or take her to the beach or that sort of thing. We haven't been able to do any of that. So that's a big change for the worse.

Interviewer: Has there been a pattern to your feelings or experiences throughout the pandemic?

Brita: Initially, I think I was afraid and apprehensive. I recall having the sensation that there was a tsunami out there that was COVID, that was coming to us. And we didn't know when it was going to hit or how hard. Also, I had a lot of disappointment. We couldn't go to Alice's graduation. Steve and I had thought about a 25th anniversary trip this year and we can’t do that. But now I guess I've sort of gotten used to the threat of COVID. It seems a little bit more manageable now. At first there was the whole change in the way of life with social distancing and masks and getting the office organized to manage it. Now I feel like I'm most concerned about the vulnerability of special groups. Like the essential workers in the hospitality field, my patients, undocumented people and elderly people, in particular my mom and Steve's mom, who lives in St. Louis, how at risk are they?

I realized that by now my fear for my personal safety has gone away. And I've realized how lucky I am and how blessed I am that I can keep going to work part time and I can stay home and I have enough money to go get groceries and I can stay safe. And that's made clear how many people are not as lucky as me.

Interviewer: Do you have any thoughts about what might happen to St. Mary's in the future or to society in general? Do you think the pandemic will change us permanently?

Brita: I don't know about society. I mean, I certainly hope some big changes will happen, but that may depend on the election next week. As far as St. Mary's goes, I think this has been a really remarkable demonstration of the fact that church isn't the building. You know, Kristine has made that point before, but our shared COVID experience has really made it hit home that the church is not the building, it's the people. And when COVID is under better control and we are more able to interact with each other and with strangers and with our community, I would hope that St Mary's is going to spread out away from the building more and be more involved in the community and maybe offer more to the community.

I guess it makes me think of how Father Richard used to talk about how there are two congregations at St Mary's: there’s the Sunday morning congregation. And there's the entire rest of the week. I think that COVID may help blur the lines between those a little bit, I hope, and inspire more of those of us who were previously only Sunday morning to do more all the time instead of just Sunday.

Interviewer: What has been the hardest thing about the pandemic for you?

Brita: The most difficult thing for me is that my mother is locked up for her safety. And she just had her eighty-ninth birthday. And we did the best we could. I was over there three times that day and we had a party for her, but it was very small. Because you can't have more than two visitors at a time outdoors, six feet apart with a mask on. But I just think, oh, my goodness, she's lived so long, through World War Two and the Depression and everything. She's lived through it all. And now to spend the most recent couple of years of her life sequestered like this, it just seems really sad.

Interviewer: Anything else you would like to mention?

Brita: I wear a lot of hats - daughter, wife, mom, doctor. But there is a core identity that says I'm a physician. So the thought of retiring has always been something I didn't want to think about because I thought, well, I can't. You know, when I retire I'm not a physician anymore: then what am I? My kids are grown. So I'm not really a mom. I mean, I'm a mom--I'm always going to be a mom. But it's not the same as when you have children to raise in your house. But I guess with this enforced staying home and being less busy, I've realized that there are things about life that are just as enjoyable or fulfilling as work, like the gardening and reading books and spending time with Steve . . . that It's okay at some point, it will be OK to retire and not have that label anymore because I have enough going on in the rest of my life that I don't have to have that definition or identity anymore. So that's been something that I've kind of come to realize through this pandemic.