‘Absorbing the COVID-19 gloom like a sponge’: Doctors on the trauma of the second wave

The mental wellbeing of medicos during the pandemic needs attention and understanding too

“As physicians we owe our patients two things — only two things — our time and our skill. We do not owe our patients our lives.” – Dr Joseph D Wassersug (private practitioner in Internal Medicine from Massachusetts) Clinical psychologist Diksha Gupta from Delhi mentions a resident doctor who has not left his room for a month and who barely slept, dreading that he may not wake up again. Doctors and healthcare workers across the country have been on their toes dealing with the daily influx of COVID-19 patients for more than a year now. Naturally the relentless struggle against the pandemic has led to physical and mental burnout among medical professionals. Dr Rebecca Hendrickson of the University of Washington has outlined three factors responsible for this psychological stress — volume and intensity of their COVID-19-related work, level of fear about their safety, and the extent of demoralisation.