Tag: burnout

Another GSW

“Another GSW” by Odeya Kagan is a short personal narrative detailing a young doctor’s encounter with a patient who had extensive injuries from a single bullet wound, and how the experience made her consider the ramifications of gun violence in America. As Kagan looks forward to her medical career, she prioritizes never becoming numb despite the frequency and normalization of gun shot wounds (GSWs). This story could prompt discussion of gun violence as a public health issue and the ways in which gun violence is ingrained into American culture. It could also be used to address the topics of physician burnout or the mental taxation of working in trauma and emergency departments. Hospital residents in particular may be able to relate to the sentiments of the author.

In need of a prayer

Physician’s story of visit to a suspected-COVID patient from early days of pandemic. Details the stress of not knowing how to protect herself, patients’ isolation from his family, lack of treatment options, frantic pace of ER when infections and frequent deaths taxed medical professionals’ emotional and physical stamina. Relates patients’ conditions to her own father. Vivid starting point to discuss burnout (contrast with simple exhaustion and overwork), remind all audiences of what early months of uncontrollable COVID were like as memories fade. Ends by evoking a Celine Dion/Andrea Bocelli song about prayer that could contribute to discussion of music in healing.

(Not so) golden years

Daughter describes the stress of caring for her aging parent from geographically distant place. Details many issues that created burnout in her caregiver role, including feeling isolated and embarrassed about her struggle until she found out all of the problems she faced were very common for caregivers in her position. Useful to discuss how difficult it is to care for elderly parents, especially from a distance, and caregiver burnout.

The Hidden Dying of Doctors: What the Humanities Can Teach Medicine and Why We All Need Medicine to Learn It

This review of Kalanithi’s “When breath becomes air” focuses most on the opening story of a young colleague who took his own life, the problem of medical student and physician suicide/ depression/burnout, and how humanities education could alleviate the suffering of doctors by connecting them with the human side of medicine, their own and that of patients. This is very useful as a first-week reading in a Foundations of Health Humanities course or as a reference for a talk to aspiring med students