SHELBURNE FALLS — Dr. Stefan Topolski is no stranger to global medicine and pandemics. Before becoming a self-proclaimed “country doctor” 20 years ago, he traveled the world to help sick people in Third World countries and elsewhere.
This week, to take precautions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he opened two drive-thru windows at the practice he moved to Bridge Street in downtown Shelburne Falls five years ago. He said the windows are in his two examination rooms.
“I decided to do this over the weekend,” Topolski said. “To keep everyone safe, we realized we have two windows to the parking lot, so we put up cones to direct people to the windows.”
“Some people in this area don’t have the capabilities to use telehealth, so they have to come here,” he added. Telehealth is the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical health care, patient and professional health-related education, public health and health administration.
Topolski said some pandemics have been worse, and this will pass, but people need to listen to professionals about how to get through it.
“We don’t want to lose anyone we love,” he said. “We need to be careful and take normal precautions.”
He said he has worked in global health and has seen strange and scary things that people get through. He said doctors and health care professionals are working hard on something they haven’t seen, doing things they haven’t had to do often.
Topolski said he was recently reading a book about a diphtheria epidemic in Maine in the 1800s. He said houses were under quarantine, and people were confined and had to be careful in public.
“People know this kind of stuff has happened in the past, but don’t expect it to happen now,” he said. “We are trained in this, so people need to have confidence that we will do everything that we can, and they need to be patient.”
Topolski said he is currently seeing patients through the two windows. People drive their cars up to the windows and don’t have to get out of the vehicle.
“We can see patients, talk to them, ask questions and evaluate them as best as possible,” he said. “We haven’t seen any suspicious symptoms, and we’ve seen no cases.”
Topolski said he does not have the ability to test patients for flu, other viruses or COVID-19 at this point, so if they do have symptoms, they will be directed to go to the emergency room.
“People should call us if they have symptoms,” he said. “They should stay home and not drive here. If they have trouble breathing or other serious symptoms, they should go to the emergency room where they will be tested and treated.”
Reach Anita Fritz at 413-772-0261, ext. 269 or afritz@recorder.com.