Breaking down health care’s "I’m fine" culture

Health care employees are confronted with a variety of emotionally charged scenarios that can produce lasting repercussions to their well-being. Organizations have typically taken reactive, one-size-fits-all approaches to emotional support that fail to differentiate between types of emotional suffering. And they’ve relied on staff to build self-resilience and bounce back on their own.

In the wake of Covid-19, this approach will no longer suffice. Health care organizations must commit to providing targeted baseline emotional support for the three types of emotionally charged scenarios that health care employees are likely to encounter in their careers: trauma and grief, moral distress, and compassion fatigue.