Alaska's Doctor with Dr. Anne Zink - TAS #13

This week we sit down with Dr. Anne Zink, emergency room physician and Alaska's Chief Medical Officer. She talks to us about how she is leading us through the Covid-19 crisis, Alaska's public health strengths, and activities she wishes Alaskans would think twice about as an emergency room physician.

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Interview Notes

Dr. Anne Zink has been the Chief Medical Officer for the State of Alaska - starting July 2019. Sits under the commissioner of the DHSS.

Disaster response, disease, epidemiology are their main focus. She’s the medical voice.

Dr. Zink’s day-to-day changes a lot. They stood up their disaster response structure for the Wuhan flight. It’s been escalating since thm> She helps secure PPE. Looks at protocols around travel, tourism, large groups, and businesses. Covid is the main focus but there are other health initiatives as well. Lots of conversations and talking to the Governor and commissioners and messaging and trying to understand the data behind Covid. They do a lot of calls with frontline providers to help them understand the latest data, science, and testing. She also works with the fishing industry and various businesses.

How much do we really know about Covid-19? We have come a long way in just a month. 5-6 months ago we didn’t know this virus existed. In a short time we’ve learned a lot. There are inherent things we won’t know without time, such as immunity information. That just takes time to study. This has also highlighted uncertainty in medicine and science - and how different people adjust differently to a disease. But the genetic sequencing is already uploaded. There are over 200 vaccines in different trials. We have different antivirals working. They’re doing calls with different doctors all the time all over the world.

Dr. Zink is still working from the yurt at her house - which is a guest bedroom. That gives her kids space to homeschool in her office at home. 

Dr. Zink reminds her patients that medicine is an art and it’s not perfect. She brings knowledge and education through her training and it has to sit with their personal experience. Each individual person has different needs and environment and it’s a partnership and not an exact science.

How do you decide what treatment to recommend? You analyze the benefits, the effectiveness, and the downsides. For something like masks the downside is that it’s uncomfortable and not everyone has them and it’s politicized. The upside is that the data shows the disease is translated by air through micro-droplets, and a cloth face covering could significantly decrease those droplets. A mask is covering your talking like covering a sneeze or cough. There are other social norms around what we wear like “no shirt, no shoes, no service.” A study said if 60% of us wear a mask that’s 60% effective this disease would stop. How do we use rules and regulations to address preventable disease? Dr. Zink sees a lot of Covid deaths as preventable.

Dr. Zink reminds herself that changing culture and behavior is hard. You see it in drunk driving, STIs, and drug and alcohol addiction. What’s hard about Covid for her is it’s asking us to be different than our normal human experiences. People miss having large parties and holidays and hugging their friends. Dr. Zink sees other options and treatments coming soon and knows if we can hold it off we could prevent a lot of death.

What are the bright spots of public health in Alaska? We have some of the lowest infant mortality cases in the country. We have a