Dr. Jasmine Swaniker

Medicine is a calling for Dr. Jasmine Swaniker, one that runs in her family. Raised by two nurses, Dr. Swaniker has always admired healthcare professionals. Now, as a perioperative anesthesiologist on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis, Dr. Swaniker is relying on her extensive training and education to continue to provide high-quality patient care.

Dr. Swaniker and her anesthesiologist colleagues are taking on new intellectual challenges presented by this pandemic. They are leading discussions in their units about patient and provider safety, advocating for more personal protective equipment for staff and finding creative technological solutions.

In this difficult time, Dr. Swaniker is going beyond traditional anesthesia to do what is necessary. She established protocols to organize Operating Room staff and determine if certain procedures can be postponed. She comforted a wife when the hospital’s new visitor policy prevented her from seeing her husband after his liver transplant. She even held up a phone so a father could watch his new child enter the world.

And if the current challenges weren’t enough, Dr. Swaniker is currently 30 weeks pregnant. Nonetheless, she remains energetic and continues to step up in the most difficult situations. Dr. Swaniker and her colleagues go to work each day committed to doing the best they can with the resources they have. Their work in a pandemic comes with a risk to their own health, and by extension to the health of their families. But, as Dr. Swaniker says, “This is what we were trained to do.”