"Why Am I Still Feeling This Way?": Addressing the Pandemic’s Continuing Moral Distress

The COVID-19 pandemic caused health care workers—including clinicians, administrators, chaplains, and social workers, and support staff alike—to adapt their work in crisis situations in ways that felt chaotic and well outside the norm. Many health care workers have reported intense feelings of powerlessness or lack of control, and experienced moral distress as they navigated issues that may have conflicted with their professional values.

At this point, it has been over a year into the pandemic and vaccination efforts are underway, some areas were slowly returning to “normal”. How are health care workers feeling? What are current sources of emotional distress for those that lived and worked through the darkest days of the pandemic?

This webinar was a unique opportunity to follow up on a previous discussion between Ira Bedzow, PhD, Director of the Biomedical Ethics and Humanities program at New York Medical College, and four other health care workers about moral distress. These same panelists returned to describe stressors that were affecting personal and team morale one year later. Dr. Bedzow conversed with the panel about real-life challenges, and provided a framework for working through emotionally distressing issues.