Sense of Community: Jessica Liberty
She tells me about two types of COVID tests. There’s the oropharyngeal, or OP swab, a throat swab used for asymptomatic patients; and the nasopharyngeal, or NP, swab, the infamous nose swab used for symptomatic patients. While neither is pleasant, Liberty tells me the NP swab is more uncomfortable and it’s good to talk the patients through it.
“We put them on the schedule and we have that conversation piece with them over the phone. We say, ‘You are symptomatic. We’re going to perform and nasopharyngeal swab on you. This is what you can expect.’ And then once the swabber performs the swab, in my experience in the swabbing that I’ve done is if you just tell them take big, deep, cleansing breaths and then you continue to coach them while you’re swabbing, I feel like they just do so much better and you just talk very, very calm. ‘Yes, this is uncomfortable. I apologize. I’m going to keep twisting and I’ve counted to five. Now I