In this segment with NPR’s Here and Now, Dr. Wendy Dean is interviewed by Amanda Peacher on the toll the COVID-19 crisis is taking on front line staff in hospitals.
Some psychiatrists are even manning a hotline to help their fellow healthcare workers. Listen in via the link below.
Tag: Moral Injury
KevinMD: Mindfulness as a Diagnostic Tool, Not a Treatment
In this most recent article from Drs. Dean and Talbot, they explore the concept of mindfulness as a diagnostic, rather than treatment for moral injury.
What would happen if clinicians flipped the script on mindfulness, and instead of using it to tolerate a broken system, used it to sharpen awareness of the challenges?
Explore this with the doctors in their latest piece published on KevinMD below.
The Daily Beast: Health Insurance Companies Thrive While the Pandemic Ravages America
While other corners of the health-care world struggled to care for patients, protect staff, and find scarce equipment, for-profit health insurance companies did just fine. Drs. Wendy Dean and Simon G. Talbot co-authored this article with Dr. Samuel Shem.
Crises often highlight both the best and the worst of humanity. Coronavirus is no exception. It has brought out the best in America’s health-care workforce. It also has deeply wounded the healthcare workers through moral injuries.
Health Systems Address Employee Mental Health, They’re Finding Women Are Most At-Risk
As health systems address employee mental health, they’re finding women are most at-risk. Moral injury is front and center on the spectrum of harm.
Christian Science Monitor: ‘You don’t feel alone’: How medical workers help each other cope
Health care providers face a rising mental and emotional toll amid the pandemic. Peer support programs can alleviate internal burdens and create a spirit of shared empathy.
Psychology Today: The Healers are Hurting
For many of the nation’s physicians, doctoring has become an almost unrecognizable activity, and it started long before the COVID-19 crisis. Unfortunately, the doctors have no idea how to take care of themselves. Dr. Wendy Dean’s personal and professional stories are highlighted in this piece by Psychology Today’s Hara Marano.
JPRM: Hard Hits of Distress
Physicians took two hard hits in May 2019. The first: the WHO will include a more detailed description of burnout as an occupational phenomenon in the International Classification of Diseases-11. The second: physician burnout costs the healthcare system $4.6 billion each year.
This was originally published in the Journal of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine in April of 2020. Please contact us if you’d like a copy of the PDF.
Medscape: Is it Time for Physicians to Unionize?
In this discussion, Dr. Wendy Dean and Arthur Caplan, PhD discuss the challenges facing physicians, and if unionization is the next move for physicians to protect themselves.
Watch the full discussion on MedScape by selecting the image below.
Scientific American: Psychological Trauma Is the Next Crisis for Coronavirus Health Workers
Hero worship alone doesn’t protect frontline clinicians from distress. Dr. Wendy Dean is interviewed on the role of psychological trauma and the role it will play in the coming weeks and months as healthcare continues to reckon with the coronavirus pandemic.
Medscape: COVID-19 Is Making Moral Injury to Physicians Much Worse
Moral injury is also coming to the forefront as physicians consider rationing scarce resources with too little guidance. Which surgeries truly justify use of increasingly scarce PPE? A cardiac valve replacement? A lumpectomy? Repairing a torn ligament? Dr. Dean explores these questions in the latest piece for Medscape entitled: COVID-19 Is Making Moral Injury to Physicians Much Worse.