HJNO Jan/Feb 2022

54 JAN / FEB 2022 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS COLUMN MENTAL HEALTH For many months we have heard the term “healthcare heroes.” While it’s important to recognize the pandemic’s burden on healthcare providers, for many of them, the term falls flat. IT IS NOT that they don’t appreciate being recognized for their efforts, they do. They also long for an understanding of their sac- rifices, personal and professional, by the rest of us. They are struggling emotionally due to the serious moral challenges they have faced. Moral struggles abound from potential exposure to infection by putting oneself and one’s family at risk, to follow- ing mandated policies that are incongru- ent with what one believes to be correct. These struggles undoubtedly impact a provider’s mental health and may impact EMPATHY, RESPECT AND SUPPORT for our Healthcare Providers job performance and safety. This struggle, initially studied among nurses in the 1950s, is different from emotional exhaustion. It is described and known in the literature, as “moral dis- tress”or “moral dissonance.”It arises when people are forced to make, or witness, decisions or actions that contradict their core moral values. Moral dissonance is an internal struggle caused by an inabili- ty, or powerlessness, to take an ethically correct action. For healthcare providers, facing difficult decisions comes with the territory. However, different, and exceed- ingly stressful decisions were created by the pandemic, and now, as months stretch into years, more health professionals are deciding on early retirement, changing professions and struggling with situations caused by the pandemic. The pandemic exposed all of us, but particularly, our healthcare workers, to a new infectious agent. Initially, no one knew how COVID-19 spread nor how infectious or deadly it was. All that we knew was that going into a hospital or clinic created a