Aug. 9, 2020

Flattening the curve of COVID’s emotional impact

"Based on the evidence of the effects of trauma, we can predict that our health care teams, patients and families will exhibit signs of this assault through a variety of symptoms–sleeplessness, apathy, depression, and anxiety. The warning signs are...

"Based on the evidence of the effects of trauma, we can predict that our health care teams, patients and families will exhibit signs of this assault through a variety of symptoms–sleeplessness, apathy, depression, and anxiety. The warning signs are already here. We read the desperate accounts and pleas of frontline workers describing the indescribable, holding the hands of patients dying alone, communicating with stunned and distraught families isolated away from death beds of their loved ones. Dr. Breen is symptomatic of a larger undercurrent of the fatal moral injury of the system currently at work. We need to face it head-on or risk additional losses as tragic as this."

Mary R. Talen is a psychologist. Deborah Edberg is a family physician.

They share their stories and discuss their KevinMD article, "Flattening the curve of COVID’s emotional impact." (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/05/flattening-the-curve-of-covids-emotional-impact.html)