Jessica Gold, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, more than 90,000 health care workers have been infected with the virus, and many have died. To name a few, these have included: a beloved doctor who came out of retirement, a patient transporter in Illinois, a pharmacist in upstate New York, and a nursing home worker. And those are just the deaths from physical illness and don’t take into account mental health consequences.
If you follow the news, you’ll read and hear over and over again that we are at “war” with the virus and that physicians like us, along with other essential workers, are soldiers in battle.
The term “front-line workers,” which has been used to describe those in health care during this pandemic, comes from the military, describing people putting their bodies at the front of the battalion, facing down the enemy.
Read the full piece in Vox.