Critical Care Doctors Are in Crisis [View all]

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Critical Care Doctors Are in Crisis
Who’s caring for the ICU physicians?
By Carolyn Barber on August 9, 2021


As a critical care physician, Kelli Mathew knew her days were spinning in the wrong direction. For one thing, her well of empathy was dry. When unvaccinated people came to her, suffering the effects of COVID, Mathew began snapping back. She had run out of comforting or even neutral things to say.

“In my mind, it was like, ‘This is your doing. You chose not to get vaccinated and here you are,’” says Mathew, who works at Deaconess Henderson Hospital in Henderson, Ky. “I would say, ‘You’re probably going to die and this could have been preventable—how sad is that?’ I would walk away. And that’s not who I am.”

In the end, Mathew reached out for help, entering counseling to try to understand what had happened. Her doctor-patient relationships were crumbling in front of her, and she knew she was the reason why. “I’ve always been the most empathetic, compassionate person to a fault,” she says. Clearly, something had changed.

For nearly 18 months, critical care workers have been on the front lines of one of the worst medical crises in American history. The intensive care unit (ICU) death toll for COVID-19 patients is almost unimaginable: a mortality rate of approximately 35 percent, according to one meta-analysis. Nurses in the ICU have served, suffered devastating loss and ultimately left the profession in droves. We have read their stories of grief and pain.

Only now, in the long tail of COVID’s run, are we beginning to understand the depth of the toll the pandemic has taken on the physicians on the front lines. Although hardly surprising, the news is not good.

“ICU doctors are experiencing among the highest levels of stress, burnout and fatigue from COVID-19, says Greg Martin, president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine. “Perhaps more than any other specialty, they continue to experience the full brunt of COVID-19.”

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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/critical-care-doctors-are-in-crisis/