This just in. Penn School of Nursing has found that nearly half (41%) of those in nursing or social work positions (presumably that is medical social workers) would NOT choose their profession should they have it to do over because they are experiencing feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, fatigued and a sense of powerlessness. This is being called “Moral distress”. They see the unfairness in the medical system in the distribution of resources (among other ethical andmoral issues.) There was a prayer request at Church on Sunday for a young woman who has a painful cyst on her ovaries but who has no health insurance. She is living on painkillers until she works enough days to qualify for coverage so she can schedule surgery. When it comes to health care there is much moral distress! How can this country of riches have 9.4 children without health insurance, especially when 90% of those live in working families. Marian Wright Edelman, founder and director of the Children’s Defense Fund, speaking at Penn this week on the occasion of the Martin Luther King celebrations said, “I had no idea how hard it would be to get this country to do what is right and moral for our chidren.” Moral distress indeed! We could use some shifts in its moral priorities.
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Jeff Draine | 30-Jan-08 at 3:11 pm | Permalink
A general understanding of burnout is that its not an amount of work–or even the size of the problem one is addressing–but the sense of powerlessness that is the source. Perhaps those of us who train nurses, social workers and physicians can move future practitioners toward change activities in society as well as in bodies.
Daren Smith | 17-Apr-08 at 10:56 pm | Permalink
this is a sad situation that is happening everywhere. Part of the problem is doing more with less. Social workers, nurses, teachers, and many more are understaffed and are absorbing too much of the workload. Plus nurses and social workers alike deal with people that already stress in one way or another and I’m sure that stress passes on to the employee one way or another