Doctors’ Day 2024

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

Tomorrow, March 30, is National Doctors’ Day. It was designed to convey gratitude to physicians, especially to those who recently and courageously saw patients live during the pandemic. As the pandemic wound down, our epidemic burnout rate unfortunately increased.

At first during the pandemic, physicians were viewed as heroes. However, as distrust in science intensified with some of the public, patients and families started to be more critical and hostile to physicians. Such aggression probably helped to increase the rate of burnout even higher, as an editorial in a special issue of Psychiatric Annals recently conveyed.¹ Female physicians received even more discrimination.

The theme in National Doctors’ Day 2024 is “Honoring Our Healthcare Workers.” Given the continuing burnout epidemic and the additional stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps the best way to honor physicians is to appreciate their burnout and work with them to improve the medical systems where care is provided. That means systems that provide adequate support and time for physicians to provide the healing that they are capable of. All our lives and health depends on that.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.

Reference

1. Vermylen JH, Burnett-Zeigler I, Agarwal G. A SAFER workplace: broadening peer support programs. Psychiatric Annals. 2024;54(1):e3-e8.