🚨During surges, much is written about healthcare workers burning out. But they often get by on adrenaline only to find, once ICUs are empty, that so are they.
I spoke to so many healthcare workers who’ve been broken by the pandemic—by the traumas they saw, the institutions that failed them, the moral distress of being unable to do their job. Many thought they were in medicine for life. They’ve quit, too. 2/
COVID is hard to treat. It quickly inundates hospitals.
Healthcare workers aren't quitting because they can’t handle their jobs. They’re quitting because they can’t handle *being unable to do their jobs*. 3/
COVID patients are getting more belligerent. A nurse said, “We’re at war with a virus & its hosts are at war with us.”
That’s eroding compassion, which is horrible. Being shaken by death comes with the job. Finding yourself *unmoved* is almost worse. 4/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Many HCWs left more because of how their hospitals treated them than because of COVID itself. They were already burned out but "I was willing to stay & be miserable,” one said.
This creates a crushing downward spiral. People leave, things get harder for those left behind, *they* leave, and so on. 66% of acute/critical care nurses are thinking about leaving--not just their jobs, but *nursing*. 6/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Expertise is hemorrhaging. Many older nurses/docs have left, taking incalculable amounts of know-how with them. Already “things are being missed,” a nurse told me. “The care feels frantic and sloppy even though we’re not overrun with COVID right now.” 7/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Many HCWs told me they’re now more worried about their loved ones needing medical care *for anything*, never mind COVID.
This is the pandemic’s legacy. This is what 2 years of bad policy & individualistic choices have cost us. 8/
This piece is not without hope. But I want to be real here. It's BAD.
I spent the last 2 weeks listening to dozens of people relive their worst 2 years. HCWs are used to bottling things up. When they talk—when they cry—we had better listen. Fin/
... how she eschewed easy technocratic solutions to complex problems; how she centered disabled, queer, POC, and other marginalized voices; and perhaps most importantly, how she maintained a core of hope even when talking about the bleakest futures. 2/3
She did all that, and for most of Flash Forward's life, she did it *single-handedly*, without the production crews that many popular podcasts have.
She's an inspiration, and a dear, dear friend. I can't wait to see what she does next. 3/3
Pre-industrial whaling, whales ate 2x as much krill as exist today every year. Or 2x the global fisheries catch.
Which was fine because their poop fertilized the same food webs that they gorged upon. When the whales were killed, those webs imploded. theatlantic.com/science/archiv…
One possible but controversial solution is to add iron to former whaling grounds, jumpstarting food webs that the whales once fuelled themselves.
This plan is essentially humans cosplaying as giant piles of shit, which we should be *amazing* at by now
There's a lot of Facebook coverage out there today, but I want to especially highlight this piece by Adrienne, not just because it's amazing in itself, but because it represents the latest of a deeply incisive series, all of which you should read 1/
🚨I wrote about public health’s history; why it spent the 20thC moving away from broad coalitions, political advocacy, and a crusading spirit that actively pushed for social reforms; and why it must regain those things to be relevant and effective. 1/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Public health is often cast as an underdog, invisible & ignored. That’s not the full story. In the 20thC, it made choices that silenced its voice, reduced its constituency, minimized its power. It “actively participated in its own marginalization.” 2/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Germ theory was a revolution that gave public health license to be less revolutionary. It allowed the field to move away from the social problems that underlie poor health towards a blinkered, individualistic, biomedical model—to its detriment, and ours. theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Here’s the anthology, which you can preorder. I’m so proud of this selection and the 26 amazing writers whose pieces are featured. bookshop.org/books/the-best…
Also I wrote this essay in February, while still on book leave. It’s interesting how much it thematically overlaps with the piece I wrote this week, down to the Virchow ref and the germ theory bit. I promise this isn’t suddenly a Virchow stan account.