Greek A-team in the coronavirus battle: Mount Sinai’s Antonis Charokopos

The coronavirus pandemic for many Greeks was a belated introduction to the constellation of highly distinguished doctors, scientists, and researchers both in Greece and in ecumenical Hellenism from the US to Switzerland.

Antonis Charokopos, a Yale man and a top clinician at one of the world's greatest hospitals, Mount Sinai Manhattan, has for weeks worked furiously on the frontline of treatment as a pulmonologist and ICU specialist.

In an exclusive interview with To Vima English Charokopos lays out the heart-wrenching moments of watching a patient die with no relative allowed at their bedside and the burden of being in America's epidemiological ground zero - the hardest hit place in the country where the hair-raising sight of gathered freezer trucks is emblematic.

But it is standing by the dying that drew him to intensive care medicine and he underlines that his Faith is what has kept him and strengthened him to endure the crushing psychological burden of an unrelenting battle with the grim reaper.

In that context he cites the shocking suicide of New York ER specialist Lorna Breen.

He stresses the gnawing sense of helplessness from being unable to change the situation.

Charokopos also outlines the purely medical challenges and the scientific knowledge and treatment methods gleaned from the crisis.

Interestingly, he says he is not immune to nostos and that he would consider returning to Greece under the right circumstances.

Tell us a bit about you path from Greece to the US, Yale,  and now Mount Sinai. What drew you to pulmonary medicine and then intensive care medicine on top?

 I completed my middle and high school years in Thessaloniki. My high school, Mandoulides,...