Doctor runs marathon in honor of patients lost to COVID-19

It’s hard to believe Marcial Santos, MD, ever stands still.

Currently, he works a five-day-on/five-day-off schedule as a hospitalist for Cape Cod Hospital. Meanwhile, he provides primary care for patients at Broad Reach Healthcare in Chatham, which he will continue to do after giving up the hospitalist position in late May to join a Yarmouth primary care practice. He’s married with three children ages 17, 16 and 11. He has family here and in his native Dominican Republic.

And he’s been training to run the Boston Marathon, which he did Monday to honor the COVID-19 patients he cared for during the pandemic at both the hospital and the nursing facility.

“Those patients were suffering, struggling to breathe, struggling to bring air into the lungs. And so, we saw significant mortality,” he said. “​​And the difficult part of that is that despite the fact that you treat it and you give patients what you have in your hands available, you feel like it didn't make that much difference. It's very different from a regular pneumonia: [Those patients] are sick, but you know that you have the antibiotic and in 24 hours, you see a significant difference.”

Dr. Santos, 50, has been with Cape Cod Healthcare since 2005 when he finished his residency at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center near Chicago. But the pandemic, particularly the second wave, tested his medical skills and his psyche. And isolation contributed greatly to patients’ battles against the disease, despite hospital staff’s efforts to keep families and patients connected digitally with iPads and FaceTime, he said.

“The isolation made the disease even worse because the patients not only were affected by this illness, but the family was not there,” he said. “So, it was really, really hard and we not only had to deal with the disease itself but the mental part as well.”

He first started running about eight years ago after his mother died from what he described as a sudden, massive heart attack. He ran the Chicago Marathon in 2019 and finished in four hours and 17 minutes. He continued to be an active runner and worked out with friends, but the pandemic encouraged him to take it up seriously again.

“I was very affected psychologically in the sense of seeing so much death, and also the isolation of COVID. So, I started running more outside,” he said, speaking from the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center in Boston on Saturday, where he was picking up his runner’s bib – No. 25414.

A friend encouraged him to try for Boston but in order to qualify, he needed to either have a qualifying time under about 3.5 hours or raise a minimum of $11,000 for a sponsoring charitable organization. He was able to partner with the Esplanade Association in Boston, which supports the green space along the Charles River, as well as the bandshell known for the Boston Pops Fourth of July concerts. By marathon eve, he had raised almost $12,000.

Before the race, he was a little nervous about running Boston, thinking particularly of the course’s renowned hills. Training was hard, he said, especially fitting it in around family and work commitments. His original goal was to finish in 4.5 hours but by the weekend before the race he was hoping to just finish due to a hamstring issue. His family will be there to cheer him on.

“Throughout the training process you go through aches and pains, ups and downs. I have a little discomfort in my right hamstring that I encountered halfway through my training. However, I don’t want to give up. I worked with physical therapy. I work with health friends, massage and my family’s psychological support. …So, I’ve been massaging and stretching, and I feel ready to go.”

And, at the end of the race, he came close to his athletic goal, finishing in just over four hours and 51 minutes. And, he met his emotional goal as well, of honoring COVID patients.

“I’ve seen all the suffering, all these patients,” he said. “I feel like, you know what? I should honor these people, the patients of COVID who suffer so much.”