As the Pandemic Rages on, Watch for Signs of ‘Moral Injury’ Among the Staff

When the COVID-19 pandemic really started picking up steam in the U.S. last spring, the threat to healthcare workers’ emotional wellbeing was seen as being related to the rapid rise in cases and how quickly hospital systems became overloaded; on the urgent care front, there was some of that in urban areas but in other locales there was worry over job security as patient visits dropped. Now, however, the length of time we’ve all been contending with the virus is viewed as a threat in its own right, as is the concept of being able to provide vaccines to some patients but not others; moral injury is becoming more prevalent among healthcare workers, according to an article just published online by Patient Care. This is not too far removed from burnout, which has also been on the rise among urgent care workers during the pandemic. JUCM covered this topic in depth. You can still read The Covid-19 Pandemic Is Making Burnout Worse for Physicians Already in Crisis in our archive.