Moral Distress and COVID-19: Worlds Collide

by Vickie Leff (@VickieLeff)As a clinical social worker, I am often approached by my medical colleagues asking for support and a listening ear around difficult cases, understanding their own reactions, team dysfunction, and moral distress. In the middle of this COVID pandemic, Social Workers, Chaplains, Nurses, Physicians, Respiratory Therapists, Child Life Specialists, etc. are all likely experiencing an increase in moral distress. This is due to the necessary change of focus from “patient-centered” to “community -based” approach, and resource allocation issues such as PPE shortage, health inequities, visitation limitations.A few years agoI wrote another article about Moral Distress. Things have changed since then, compounded by the pandemic. I would like to take a moment to focus on how we can manage these complicated, emotionally charged situations during this incredibly stressful time in which we are challenged about ability, time, strategies to deal with moral distress. Moral Distress challenges clinicians to speak out, work together, and tolerate ambivalence. We must embrace the discomfort in order to legitimize the occurrence and find solutions, especially during this pandemic, when the focus of providers can be easily pulled in many directions. “You have to do everything to keep her breathing,” the father of a 15 year old dying of a brain hemorrhage, said to me as the Palliative Care Social Worker. Hearing the panic and desperation in his voice while ...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Care Tags: covid hapc hpm leff moral distress social work social worker Source Type: blogs