“A common example is when someone who has been assaulted recounts the experience to the police, or even a friend or family member, and they basically just tell exactly what happened almost as if it happened to someone else or was a different person’s story,” Dr. Jessica Gold, a psychiatrist and assistant professor at Washington University […]
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a global mental health crisis,1 with increased mental health–related visits across specialties and emergency departments.
Melanie Gray Miller, a 30-year-old physician, wiped away tears as she described the isolation she felt after losing a beloved patient. “It was at the end of a night shift, when it seems like bad things always happen,” said Miller, who is training to become a pediatrician.
The pandemic has spread healthcare workers thin over the last few years. With staffing shortages and wave after wave of COVID cases, that wear has become increasingly apparent. But burnout is not new to the healthcare field.
“I think of burnout as becoming exhausted by your job and losing the ability to care about your work and the people you work with,” Bradley Evanoff, MD, MPH, professor of occupational and environmental medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, tells SELF.
Nearly two-thirds of doctors are experiencing at least one symptom of burnout, a huge increase from before the pandemic. But the situation is not irreparable, researchers say.
A lot can change in two years. These days it’s often impossible to fathom life before we had to contend–physically and emotionally–with a global pandemic that has changed everything. For our family, that change came suddenly. In April 2020, Dr. Lorna Breen, an accomplished NYC emergency room physician working on the frontlines of the first […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised stress levels among health-care workers, leading to burnout, depression and, in some cases, exits from the field. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received a grant that aims to reduce burnout and promote mental health and wellness among such workers.