Ep. 47: Unprecedented, with UCLA Health’s John Mazziotta

“One day, for the first time in my 39 years, there were no patients in the emergency department. It was a Sunday morning. Never seen that in my life. … Heart attacks, strokes, mental illness – these people were not coming in. … There are a lot of deaths that are indirectly going to be associated with COVID-19 even though the patients never had the infection.”

As the vice chancellor of UCLA Health Sciences and the CEO of UCLA Health, John Mazziotta helms one of the crown jewels of California’s formidable medical research and health care ecosystem. When the crisis erupted, his hospitals prepared to be a major hub for the region’s most challenging cases. Fortunately, that anticipated influx never came; however, for UCLA and for hospitals and patients everywhere, Dr. Mazziotta sees consequences that will reverberate for years.

But his concerns about the collateral damage of COVID-19 are at least partially offset by his prognosis for the future: “I'm actually extremely optimistic about how we come out of this,” he tells Mike. “I don't think there's anything in medicine that will look the same after the pandemic. … I've told that to the faculty, I’ve told that to the staff, and we have to figure out a way to do the new world of medicine more efficiently, more effectively and have the end result be better for patients, trainees and scientists.”