Doctors coping with COVID: Tradeoffs’s Dan Gorenstein interviews Dr Albert Wu about the mental health of frontline health care workers

Summary

With the possibility of a spike in COVID-19 cases this winter, doctors, nurses and medical staff may be coming in feeling already depleted from an uncontrolled pandemic. Guest host Dan Gorenstein of the Tradeoffs podcast talks with Dr Albert Wu, co-director of RISE (Resilience in Stressful Events) which provides emotional support to health system staff.

Gorenstein and Wu talk about why health care workers may have low reserves right now, how COVID may be changing perceived stigma around mental health support for frontline workers and what institutions can do to ensure the well-being and resilience of all staff.

"Asking people to be heroic over and over again, to run back into the fire multiple times, gets harder each time" (Dr Wu).

This is a podcast called Public Health on Call, produced by John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.