Craig Spencer, M.D., M.P.H., a 2008 graduate of the Wayne State University School of Medicine, is director of global health in emergency medicine at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. He is also a survivor of a contagious virus called ebola.

He wrote the column, “What it’s like being a New York ER doctor during this pandemic,” for The Washington Post’s March 24 edition.

“You take sign-out from the previous team, but nearly every patient is the same, young and old: cough, shortness of breath, fever. The staff is really worried about one patient. Very short of breath, on the maximum amount of oxygen we can give, but still breathing fast,” he wrote.

After graduating from the WSU School of Medicine, the Redford, Mich., native and Grosse Pointe North High School graduate completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at the New York Hospital of Queens in Flushing, N.Y. Dr. Spencer tested positive for the ebola virus in 2014 during that epidemic’s outbreak. He contracted the virus while working with Doctors without Borders, taking care of ebola patients in Guinea.

Dr. Spencer returned to the School of Medicine to deliver a lecture in 2015, sharing his concerns, lessons, observations and experiences as a provider-turned-patient at the center of an epidemic.