Whether they realize it or not, hospitalists treating patients during the COVID-19 pandemic have been in a combat-like situation, with challenges and stresses similar to those faced by soldiers in a war zone.
Lt. Gen Mark Hertling, DBA
And now, as the pandemic shows signs of subsiding, they’re about to emerge from this fight, which poses a whole new set of challenges, according a retired U.S. Army general who spoke May 4 at SHM Converge, the annual conference of the Society of Hospital Medicine.
Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Mark Hertling, DBA, said during his keynote speech that clinicians and soldiers – the only two professions that routinely have to navigate through life and death situations – must lead during all phases of combat.
“This is a period where you’re going to experience some things that you may or may not be ready for,” he said. “These are the same kind of issues soldiers face when redeploying from a combat zone.”
To help draw the comparison between hospitalists during the COVID-19 era and troops during a war, Lt. Gen. Hertling showed a photo of a U.S. paratrooper who’d just dropped into northern Iraq, carrying a backpack engorged with gear. He was on one knee with his face downcast as he seemed to be taking a moment to reflect on the enormity, complexity, and danger of the crisis into which he was about to plunge. He was, Lt. Gen. Hertling said, likely pondering the mission, his family he left behind, and concerns about making mistakes in front of his comrades.
Then he showed a picture of a health care worker in a hospital corridor slumped on the floor with his or her back against the wall, knees up, and hands loosely clasped, looking exhausted and dazed. Health care workers also have carried a load that has seemed unbearable.
“You can certainly see that they are experiencing an emotional trauma at the very start of the pandemic,” he said. “The things you have carried over the last year-plus as the pandemic has raged will be with you in good and sometimes bad ways, and you need to address those things.”
Lt. Gen. Hertling described several issues – mirroring those seen in combat – that clinicians will take away from the COVID-19 experience and must grapple with as the closing chapters of the pandemic play out:
A sense of teamwork in a crisis
While it’s not unusual, he said, for physicians not to get along well with administrators, and for nurses sometimes not to trust doctors, the COVID-19 crisis created a sense of effective teamwork.
“They have built trust because they see a common mission and a common requirement,” he said.
A sense of loss
“You have lost patients, you probably have lost comrades, and some of you are having this associated survivor’s guilt – why did you survive and so many of your patients, perhaps a lot of your friends, did not?”
At memorial services for fallen soldiers, Lt. Gen. Hertling would bring a laminated card with the soldier’s picture and put it in a box with the words “Make It Matter” on it.
“That was our code for ensuring that every one of these individual soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the organization, we would carry on their legacy and make their sacrifice matter,” he said. “That’s one of the few ways you can overcome survivor’s guilt.”
Sense of accomplishment
Lt. Gen. Hertling said hospitalists, pushed to the extreme, were able to do things they never thought they were capable of.
“You have to relish in that, and you have to write those things down so you can go back and think about the things you did in a crisis environment to help,” he said.
In the post-pandemic era, health care workers should reflect on what they have seen, learned, and experienced, to help set a new standard and to establish ways to eliminate “bureaucratic morasses,” which seemed more possible than ever because the urgency of the moment demanded it.
Lt. Gen. Hertling also said hospitalists should take time to make a plan to handle personal, professional, team, and organizational requirements. For instance, health care workers should get a physical to take stock of how their bodies reacted to the stress of the pandemic. He said they should also recognize the difference between posttraumatic stress, which is to be expected, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is less common.
“It’s only at the extreme that it becomes a dysfunction and you have to address it with the help of others,” he said. Hospitalists should examine the state of their emotional and spiritual relationships – with family and friends as well as with God or other figures important to them spiritually.
Professionally, hospitalists should review professional accomplishments and shortcomings and make changes based on those assessments, he said. It’s also a good time to assess leadership issues – recall who the contributors were and who could have done more. Hospitalists should also consider contributing post-pandemic articles to the Journal of Hospital Medicine, he said.
Lt. Gen. Hertling concluded by suggesting that hospitalists seek feedback on themselves and their own leadership qualities, from their team members.
“Really press the issue,” he said, “and get a good critique on how you can improve personally and professionally in terms of your leadership approach.”
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