Affiliation:
1. Department of Sociology UNC‐Chapel Hill Chapel Hill North Carolina USA
2. The Hastings Center Philipstown New York USA
3. Center for Social Medicine and Humanities and Semel Institute, UCLA Los Angeles California USA
4. Department of Social Medicine, Center for Bioethics UNC‐Chapel Hill Chapel Hill North Carolina USA
Abstract
AbstractObjectiveThe aim of this study is to describe frontline physicians' perceptions of the impact of racial–ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in COVID‐19 infection and mortality on their occupational well‐being.MethodsOne hundred and forty‐five qualitative, semistructured interviews were conducted between February 2021 and June 2022 with hospital medicine, emergency medicine, pulmonary/critical care, and palliative care physicians caring for hospitalized COVID‐19 patients in four US cities.ResultsPhysicians reported encountering COVID‐related health disparities and inequities at the societal, organizational, and individual levels. Encountering these inequities, in turn, contributed to stress among frontline physicians, whose concerns revealed how structural conditions both shaped COVID disparities and constrained their ability to protect populations at risk from poor outcomes. Physicians reported feeling complicit in the perpetuation of inequities or helpless to mitigate observed inequities and experienced feelings of grief, guilt, moral distress, and burnout.ConclusionsHealth inequities are an under‐acknowledged source of physicians' occupational stress that requires solutions beyond the clinical context.
Funder
Greenwall Foundation
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
Subject
Assessment and Diagnosis,Care Planning,Health Policy,Fundamentals and skills,General Medicine,Leadership and Management
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