‘It’s a struggle’: A Newton physician and small business owner on working from home with kids

Coronavirus is affecting everyday life — even for those who have not been infected. We are sharing stories of its impact on local people. To share your own, please submit this form or email us at [email protected]. This story was told by Renée Moran of Newton, a physician and medical spa owner, and has been transcribed and edited from a conversation with Kristi Palma.

My name is Dr. Renée Moran and I’m a double board certified physician. I’m a specialist in anesthesiology and pain medicine, and I still work part time in one of the Boston hospitals. I also own my own medical spa, Dr. Renée Moran Medical Aesthetics, in Newton Centre. My husband and I live in Newton, not too far from the spa. We have a two-year-old, a six-year-old, and I also have a stepson who’s 13 years old. So, right now, we are homeschooling my kindergartener and both of us — my husband and I — are working with Zoom meetings and seeing virtual, you know, meetings and consults and patients and things like that. And then I’m also chasing around my two-year-old, who’s currently potty training, which has been a little bit trying, you know, for all of us, to try to get through our days.

We were supposed to have gone on a vacation together, which got cancelled. With my daughter’s sixth birthday, we arranged a birthday parade for her, just so she could see some of her friends and family. It ended up being a great day. She said it was her best birthday yet. We’re trying to do the best that we can. It’s definitely a struggle.

I think it’s hard for my two-year-old because she doesn’t understand what’s going on. So she doesn’t get that, you know, when we go outside, she can’t hug anybody or go up and pet a dog or, you know, do the normal things that she’s used to doing. And she just doesn’t have that capacity to understand. Whereas my six-year-old, she gets it. At the same time we try not to tell her too much because she can get really nervous and then is up at night and worried about people getting sick and things like that. So we’re trying to just be cognizant of what we’re saying and how we’re telling her things. We try to keep the news off so that she’s not seeing too much, too.

There are some people, like some of my friends, who are saying, ‘You know what? I’ve given up. I think, you know, the teachers are going to have to handle this in September. I just can’t do it.’ I have a friend who has a newborn. She’s four-weeks-old. She’s got a kindergartener and a preschooler. She just can’t keep up and her husband is still working at home. Then there’s other people who I talked to who are just — they’ve got it. I mean, they’re regimented, they are teachers themselves so they can stay on schedule. So I really think everybody has different circumstances that they’re dealing with and it really depends on your lifestyle and what you have going on at home.

Stella Moran’s birthday parade in Newton.

The med spa, it’s purely elective procedures that we do in there. I’ve only had one or two people that are like, ‘Can’t you just make an exception and give me my Botox?’ And I really try hard to explain, you know, why we’re trying to keep everybody safe and things like that. But everybody’s been really receptive to it. My hospital patients are older, so they’re trying to figure out Zoom, and some people don’t have [the] technology at home like an iPad or an iPhone. But we’re doing phone calls as best we can.

I’ve been doing a lot on social media, how-to videos, and do-it-yourself things. And I’ve created an online store so people can start taking care of their skin while they’re at home. I did a video on how to do an at-home facial. So, if you were at the spa, these are the steps, these are the products [you would use]. And now we’ve made kits and we started selling them. So that’s been really great, because people have said, ‘You know, this was so nice and refreshing. I got to do this on my Sunday night. Now I feel like I’m actually doing something for myself.’ I think it is important. Even though we’re at home, and we’re resting, we’re not really resting, right? You still need to be able to do something for yourself and take care of yourself so that you don’t completely lose it, right? I mean, it gets hard. It gets stressful. And I think, now more than ever, there’s so much pent up emotion that affects you. So I think just doing one thing for yourself has really been beneficial for a lot of our clients, which they loved and they reached out and said, you know, ‘I bought a facial kit and I dropped it off at my neighbor’s doorstep and she just started crying because she just was having a really bad week.’ It’s nice that we’re able to continue things like that.

I’m seeing patients virtually right now [rather than at the hospital] because I’m in a pain clinic where all the procedures are really considered elective so we’re trying to follow those guidelines. But it is hard. You can’t really evaluate somebody who has back pain when I can’t physically touch you and do all the maneuvers and testing that I need to do. [If] I think you need an MRI, I can’t schedule you an MRI because they’re only doing that for an emergency, so it’s been a challenge. I think a lot of my older patients just want someone to talk to, to be honest with you. So it’s just really having conversations and checking in with people and kind of making sure that they don’t feel forgotten.

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