Em Pulse

This is a challenging time for physicians and the entire healthcare workforce. That’s putting it mildly. The coronavirus pandemic is affecting all of us, physically and emotionally. In emergency medicine, we are used to dealing with stressful situations, but this pandemic brings new personal and professional challenges. We are managing severe illness for which we have no proven treatment, watching patients suffer and die alone, and living with constant worry of infecting our loved ones or even dying of the virus ourselves. Some of us are doing this in overwhelmed healthcare systems with limited resources, including personal protective equipment (PPE). How can we manage this new level of stress?   In this miniseries, we’ll dive deeper into some of the moral challenges we are facing, and explore some ways to cope. Dr. Wendy Lau, an EM physician and wellness expert, has been studying at the Upaya Institute and Zen Center. She emphasizes the power of human connection, and offers a framework, using the mnemonic G