On the heels of much-deserved accolades for all hospital workers diligently staffing the frontlines throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many first responders and citizens alike have been coordinating a drive-by at area hospitals and health clinics.

Although the drive-by practice especially increased on National Nurses Day and during National Nurses Week, the homage continues today. So much so that some nursing authorities such as the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) suggested proclamations extending National Nurses Week to National Nurses Month. Not sure who would oppose that, especially since our COVID-19 battle wages on, depositing more questions than answers. No matter one’s philosophy on the questionable data variations and scientific contradictions and political bullying being encountered across the country, healthcare employees remain in the trenches.

With warfare to the magnitude posed by COVID-19, photos of fatigued nurses and doctors and health-related support staff exhibit poses of brief respite in the hallways and lobbies of healthcare facilities whereby pensive-repose moments, many portraying temporarily removed medical face masks leaving impressions in facial flesh indicative of way too many hours of work strapped for protection. These are testimonies of dedication and endurance and compassion for fellow human beings by clinicians bleeding their knuckles and defying the odds while enduring life-threatening circumstances, tantamount to a dour cocktail of physical and mental exhaustion.

In that context, one hospital worker seemingly in his own digs and on his own time posted a short video of him singing “Lean on Me,” melodiously noting to his healthcare cohorts that despite the arduous tasks behind and for those ahead, someone is waiting in the wing as a pillar upon which to regroup. This particular pillar, though, comes with a sidekick serenade…otherwise known as a Siberian Husky howl.

To all healthcare workers, hats off and Husky howls to you: