RESIDENT ON COVID COUNCIL MAY LOOK A LITTLE FAMILIAR
BY SARA WILDBERGER
living residents find their way through the crisis that has upended their daily lives. Serving on Benchmark’s Coronavirus
D
Advisory Council alongside a former U.S. Surgeon General, a former Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and six other esteemed experts, he brings experience as an ER chief and medical editor for ABC News to help guide long-term strategy and response. At Benchmark’s The Commons commu-
nity, in Lincoln, Mass., where he and his wife live, he’s Dr. Tim. His insight into the resident experience added to his extensive medical expertise bring to the council an invaluable perspective. “It’s an amazing group of people that
Benchmark has put together,” he says of his invitation to serve on the council, “about half of whom I had interviewed during my career at ABC News.”
INNOVATIVE MEDICAL COVERAGE Beginning at Boston’s ABC affiliate in 1972 and continuing as a recurring guest on Good Morning America, he helped pioneer today’s familiar—and indispensable—medical re- porting format, one in which a knowledge- able and informed physician responds to events and questions with compassion, an open mind, and occasional humor. He was named ABC’s first full-time med-
ical editor in 1984. At the time, AIDS was reaching crisis proportions. Johnson counts Dr. Anthony Fauci, who played a significant role in both crises, among his colleagues and friends. Appearing regularly on Nightline and World News through 2009, Johnson helped
r. Timothy Johnson, MD, MPH, is the right person in the right place at the right time to help senior
viewers grasp this and other major health stories, including interviewing President Obama on the Affordable Care Act. Looking back on the world-shaping AIDS
epidemic, Johnson says the COVID-19 pan- demic carries some similarities—and some real differences. “Remember, we didn’t even know the
structure of the AIDS virus for many years, unlike this one, where we knew it within months,” he says. “And the community infection avenues were very different than they are with this virus.” “But the fear of the unknown was very
much the same,” he says. “And there was so much misinformation at that time, until we really got a handle on the science of it.” However, he says, there’s a big difference
from 25 years ago in that good information is readily available. One benefit of living in a senior living community, he points out, is not having to search out your own informa- tion and support.”
GETTING THE MESSAGE ACROSS Communicating complex information accu- rately and clearly is critical in this environ- ment, and Johnson brings a lifetime of skill at that to the advisory council. “Because of my background in media
and my work at ABC News, there are times I can point out what messages might work better in media, or when media is in fact not the way to go at all,” he says. “For example, in our recent meeting, one
of the big questions was how to deal with employees who do not want to get vaccinat- ed, for various reasons. “And we concluded, from our various points of view, that this is one time where
JOHNSON BRINGS TO THE CRISIS A LIFETIME OF SKILL AT CLEARLY COMMUNICATING COMPLEX INFORMATION.
so-called media cam- paigns were probably far less important than one-on-one counseling with peo- ple, where you can directly address their specific concerns. “When you have
Dr. Timothy Johnson
so many different perspectives represented on a panel like that, from corporate expertise to epidemio- logical expertise, to, in my case, some media expertise, you can bring a lot of viewpoints to bear on these questions and come to some consensus.”
THE LONG VIEW With the council’s charge to guide long- term strategy, what changes does he see emerging from the pandemic experience? “Well, we’ve already seen evidence that
the health disparities we've known about forever are playing out also in this epidem- ic,” he says. “I’m cautiously optimistic that we're going to begin to address those issues better than we have in the past—not a per- fect job, for sure, but better.” In addition, the whole country—not just
senior living—is wrestling with the legal and moral question of what can or should be required in terms of protection. “How do we make sure that we make
maximum use of the vaccines and the technology we now have available? How do we do it in a way that honors individual concerns, but also honors the science that tells us what we need to do for the health of the whole population?” In some ways, he says, “It’s a luxury—
that we can now shift from where are we going to get the supplies, to how are we going to use them in an ethical, legal, and proper manner?”
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