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Guest Essay

By Craig Spencer

Dr. Spencer is an emergency medicine physician and an associate professor at Brown and serves on the advisory board for Doctors Without Borders USA.

I don’t know exactly when I was infected with Ebola. As a doctor in a treatment center in Guinea in 2014, I faced hundreds of potential exposures during the outbreak there.

If I had to guess, the virus probably breached my protective gear while my colleagues and I cared for a young woman in the final moments of her battle with the disease. Each time she vomited or soiled herself, we changed her linens, gently laying her listless body back onto clean, burgundy floral sheets. I knew this ritual wouldn’t save her life. I also knew it........

© The New York Times