Doctors say bureaucracy and litigious nature of healthcare industry undermines their oath to uphold patient safety.
According to Dr Wendy Dean, “every time medical professionals have to choose anything other than their patient, it can be indicative of moral injury, or it predisposes them to moral injury.” Dr Dean and Dr Simon Talbot first used this term in a 2018 opinion piece that resonated with many. Listen to Dr. Dean and others on Al Jazeera: Burned out doctors or broken healthcare system? below
Category: Media
This is for podcasts and interviews, not authored publications.
KHN: Beyond Burnout: Docs Decry ‘Moral Injury’ From Financial Pressures Of Health Care
Drs. Dean and Talbot are featured in a piece written by Melissa Bailey, where the closing quote is: ““The system is flawed […] It’s grinding us. It’s grinding good docs and providers out of existence.”
WBUR: Moral Injury in Healthcare
Drs. Wendy Dean, Simon Talbot, Stewart Pollack and Ms. Elizabeth O’Connor speak on Moral Injury, at WBUR’s CitySpace event hosted by Carey Goldberg on February 10, 2020.
Medscape, MD Says: How Doctors Can Stop Burnout and Moral Injury
MD Says: How Doctors Can Stop Burnout and Moral Injury: Wendy and her coauthors have recently written articles describing the difficulties, frustrations, and some of the burnout that physicians have been experiencing lately. According to Wendy, this is not burnout. It’s much, much worse. This is moral injury that’s being inflicted upon physicians. Read the transcript and watch the video at the link below.
The Happy Doc Podcast: Moral Injury, Ep. 100,
The term moral injury has been gaining popularity in the internet-sphere, especially after, Wendy Dean MD and Simon Talbot MD’s article was released on STAT news. Moral Injury is an important topic to discuss as this terminology offers a broader understanding than the word “burnout.”
Burnout suggests a health professional is at fault for their emotional state: they aren’t resilient enough, and that they need to learn to recover better. Yet moral injury suggests something larger is at play. The consequences of this terminology and mindset change are immense, as we learn that hospital dynamics, insurance, litigation, electronic medical records, and policy must evolve, for health professionals to thrive.
Learn from our guests Wendy Dean MD and Simon Talbot as we discuss moral injury and its implications on healthcare.
Accad & Koka Report: Ep. 31 Is moral injury the cause of physician burnout?
Physician burnout has attained epidemic proportions. It is highest among all professions and new research indicates that doctors commit suicide at a rate that is twice that of the general population, leading to a loss of approximately one physician per day. And it’s not only doctors who are at risk. Patients too may suffer the consequences, as medical errors have now been linked to the issue of physician depression and burnout.