Marah C. Hehemann, MD, on moral injury and its causes

In this video, Marah C. Hehemann, MD, discusses the concept of moral injury. Hehemann gave a talk titled “Burnout/Impostor Syndrome” at the 2024 Sexual Medicine Society of North America Fall Scientific Meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona. She is an assistant professor of urology at the University of Washington – School of Medicine, Seattle.

Transcription:

What are the underlying causes of burnout and impostor syndrome in medical professionals? Are there specific stressors or challenges within the health care environment that contribute to these conditions?

I think it's really an important thing to talk about, not just burnout per se, because I think burnout sort of puts the onus on us, the person who is burned out as the person who really needs to make changes and to do better and to do more mindfulness, do more Pilates, when we're already stretched to our maximum. So I want to introduce the concept in this talk about moral injury. Moral injury is where we are trying to work within a value system that is not being met by the system around us. For instance, if our employer, our health care system, is not giving us enough resources to do the work that we value, that creates a moral injury that sort of transfers into these symptoms of burnout. And so it's not just burnout per se, but it's really this larger picture where we need more as well from the system. What could be causing this? It's shortages of nurses. Right now, we're in this IV fluid shortage. It's all the resources around us. Do we have enough time? Are we given enough reimbursement? We're always seeing reductions in reimbursement. Working with the EMR. All of these things really contribute to dissatisfaction, moral injury, and burnout.

This transcript was AI generated and edited by human editors for clarity.