Patients at two hospitals in Toronto could find themselves under the care of former Canadian Olympians, both of whom draw on their experience in the pool to weather the intense environment of healthcare, particularly during the COVID-19 crisis. Michelle Toro and Heather MacLean, in an interview with CBC, cite their elite swimming experience as informing how they approach their professional lives.
Toro (nee Williams), a sprinter who won a bronze medal as a prelim swimmer on the Canadian 400 freestyle relay at the Rio Olympics in 2016, works as a nurse at the neonatal intensive care unit at The Hospital for Sick Children. MacLean, a 2012 Olympian and freestyler, assists in high-risk deliveries at Mount Sinai Hospital.
Both women’s jobs have gained additional complications during the coronavirus pandemic, but they see the focus that they honed during their swimming careers as extending to their professional lives.
“In a code situation, where a lot is happening at once, you need to think quickly,” Toro, 29, said. “I find when I am in situations like that, I do feel like I can kind of slow it down in my head. Just use the techniques that I used as an athlete [to] narrow my focus and think more sharply and just do what needs to be done in that moment.”
The demands forced on the healthcare system by coronavirus has increased the degree of difficulty in the job for people like MacLean, 28, who likened the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic as representing the kind of career challenge for a healthcare worker as an Olympic Games would be for a swimmer.
“In a normal time, it’s a scary time for them,” she said. “One way we can do our job, you build trust with them pretty quickly and get to know them. It’s hard to do that when you’re going into the room fully masked and gowned. You kind of look like an alien.”
Read about Toro’s and MacLean’s experiences here.