At Stanford, some physicians who have been treating COVID-19 patients and researching long COVID realized they needed a clinic specifically for patients like Flores. Stanford Health Care’s Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome Clinic, or PACS, opened in May.
“As the pandemic, progressed, we started seeing patients with all kinds of lingering symptoms after their initial COVID infection, including fatigue, dizziness, cognitive dysfunction, mood symptoms, chest pain, shortness of breath, insomnia, loss of taste and smell, hair loss and sleep disturbance,” said Linda Geng, MD, PhD, clinical assistant professor of medicine, who co-directs the clinic at Stanford. “It was clear this was a huge problem, and we needed to serve these patients.”