Dr. Nathalie Dougé Quits Doctoring in the Middle of COVID

Nathalie Dougé always knew she wanted to be a doctor: to help people; to make her family proud; and to advocate for people who looked like her: a first-generation Haitian-American woman from the Bronx. When Covid hit, she was working as a hospitalist in Queens: the epicenter of the pandemic. In this episode, Dr. Nathalie Dougé tells us her story: what it took to become a doctor; what it was like to treat the sickest patients in the early days of Covid; how George Floyd’s murder intersected with what she was going through at work; and, ultimately, the messy, uncertain process of walking away from her calling, her training, and her identity as a physician.

Dr. Dougé was a participant in the award-winning documentary The First Wave, which follows a group of New York City doctors, nurses, and patients for the first four months of the pandemic, as they try desperately to navigate the unknown. You don’t need to have seen The First Wave to listen to this episode, but it’s free on Hulu, and everyone should watch it. We discuss the film in the intro.

The intro ends, and the interview begins, at 00:10:11.

More about The First Wave here: https://films.nationalgeographic.com/the-first-wave

Watch The First Wave on Hulu here: https://www.hulu.com/movie/the-first-wave-5e708670-e586-4a8b-a98c-f5338c4b865a

About Nathalie Dougé, MD:

Nathalie Dougé, MD is a board-certified physician in internal medicine. During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, she served as a hospitalist and assistant professor at a tertiary academic center in Queens, NY. She is one of the participant's in the critically acclaimed 2021 National Geographic documentary film, The First Wave. She has been interviewed and appeared in media outlets, such as Esquire magazine, ABC's Good Morning America and Nightline, Forbes magazine, Amanour & Company on PBS, and MSNBC Politics Nation. She is a board member of the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation. She lives in Queens, NY and is a doting dog mom to her rescue Mars. She is on IG @ndougemd.

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