Psychiatrist, expert on “moral injury” in healthcare, author
Welcome to Episode #77 of Habitual Excellence, presented by Value Capture.
Episode page with transcript, video, links, and more
Our guest today isWendy Dean, MD, a psychiatrist. She is the President and co-founder of “Moral Injury of Healthcare,” a nonprofit organization focused on alleviating workforce distress.
A seminal article she co-authored with Simon Talbot, MD for STATNews in July of 2018 began the conversation about moral injury in healthcare.
She’s the co-author of the upcoming book If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury in Medicine and Why It’s So Hard for Clinicians to Put Patients First. It will be available April 4th and you can pre-order it now through the publisher.
In today’s episode, Dr. Dean talks with host Mark Graban, about topics and questions, including:
- What is “moral injury”?
Definition 1: “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.”
Definition 2: “a deep soul wound that pierces a person’s identity, sense of morality, and relationship to society.”
- Why is moral injury different (and worse) than “burnout”?
- What’s the effect of moral injury?
- Can anything be done to reverse moral injury and its effects? Or just need to stop injuring others?
- What are some of the primary causes of moral injury in healthcare?
- How is the healthcare system broken?
- Recommendations related to EMR/EHR?
- Getting rid of “the stupid stuff”
- The role of psychological safety in creating an enabling environment…
- Why did you stop practicing as a psychiatrist?
- What’s the Level of moral injury in countries like Canada or England that have very different healthcare systems?
- What reforms do you recommend? With urgency…
- A “Clinician Protection Act”?