We Must Address Both Moral Injury and Burnout as We Renovate our Culture of Medicine

Apr 4, 2023

Wendy Dean, MD, President and Co-Founder of The Moral Injury of Healthcare

I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Dr. Wendy Dean on Hope for Healthcare Podcast. Dr. Dean really helped me better understand the concept of Moral Injury in Healthcare,  and how this concept is really a distinct entity from Burnout, and yet they may occur separately,  they may co-exist and they may influence each other as well.
 
Dr. Dean realized in healthcare, that  as physicians, our deeply held beliefs are the oaths that we took to put our patients first.  “It is driven home to us that our patients always come first, this is an implicit agreement that we make upon entering this field.  So whenever something comes between us and our patients, that feels like we are being asked to forsake that oath. When we have to take care of the EMR, or make sure we are billing properly, this feels like we are taking care of the organization and not our patient”. 
 
Dr. Dean warmly and eloquently explains how we got to where we are today in healthcare. She also is encouraging with actionable solutions on how we can more broadly include solutions for relational repair.
 
Discussion points:
 
  • How did you discover the concept of Moral Injury 
  • How do both the definitions  and drivers of Burnout differ from Moral Injury in healthcare?
  • How do Burnout and Moral injury Influence each other?
  • Why is it important to address both the operational side as well as the relational side of repair work in healthcare?
 
 
“If I Betray These Words”
 
“Physicians aren’t ‘burning out.’ They’re suffering from moral injury”

 

 

 

Wendy Dean, MD

 

Wendy Dean, MD is the President and co-founder of The Moral Injury of Healthcare, a nonprofit focused on alleviating workforce distress through research, education, consultation, and training. She is the author of, If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury In Medicine and Why It’s So Hard For Clinicians to Put Patients First, and cohost of the Moral Matters podcast.

Before co-founding the nonprofit, Dr. Dean practiced as a psychiatrist, worked for the Department of Defense in research innovation, and as an executive for a large international non-profit supporting military medical research.

Dr. Dean graduated from Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  She did her residency training at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, NH.

Dr. Katie Cole

Affectionately called “The Healer’s Healer,” Dr. Katie Cole is an award-winning psychiatrist and consultant who works with physicians and organizations to reinvigorate their passion for medicine, create healthier work/life balance, and prevent costly burnout.