The last two years have been intense for healthcare workers. With long hours, canceled vacation and strained home life, how do we manage mental health and what should we be aware of. Cardiac surgeon Simon Maltais, MD discusses his new book.

Simon Maltais, MD talks to Dr. Justin Trosclair, DC on A Doctor's Perspective Podcast

What trends do you find causing the most mental anguish for physicians and staff?

How are they coping with a pandemic, overtime, extra stress and strained family life?

What are some of the symptoms of maladapted health care workers mental health?

Last year health care workers risked their life to help covid-19 patients and were seen as heroes and this year if a medical staff is skeptical about taking a vaccination they can be fired ... how do we make sense of this? A underpinning emotion with the way it’s been politicized is that, health care workers feel a bit left out and lonely. We canceled vacation, risked our lives and now what.

Are people being misdiagnosed or delayed diagnosis or delayed symptom onset of more serious heart issues because of the fear of corona virus?

ICU beds are filled up, hospital resources are strained and that means surgeries that should be easier and quicker to access are delayed.

When on call as much as many have been the past two years, has that led to burnout, being tired and perhaps not performing at the level the health care workers would expect from themselves and make mistakes?

One of the unintended effects are highly experienced doctors retiring or quitting early and now the patients suffer and younger doctors don’t get to learn from them.

How are doctors and nurses handling home life when they are required to be on call or just plain work more hours than usual?

How do you keep your family happy when at any moment you called back to work, this could be at your kids game, a wedding or even on your hard earned vacation?

We must find a way to get relief from the High Alert State that we find ourselves in because it can damage our family and lead to mental health problems.

Being called away from family vacation and date night and your kids game is a part of the doctor life and each time you do it, it can chip away at your family’s foundation if you aren’t proactive to mediate these disturbances.

What can hospitals and clinics do to support the staff?

Books:

Healthcare Anonymous

Dr. Simon Maltais is a cardiac surgeon and author of Healthcare Anonymous. He advocates for healthcare workers' mental and physical health. Dr. Maltais is has a doctorate degree in biomedical engineering and heart regeneration. He does heart transplantation, mechanical heart devices, and alternative cardiac interventions and has published more than 160 articles

He is forming a community to help health care workers in dealing and healing of chronic unhealthy behaviors, addictions, and associated physical and mental health-related issues like depression, burnout, and anxiety.

Show notes can be found at https://adoctorsperspective.net/179 here you can also find links to things mentioned and the full transcript.

Full Transcript of the Interview (it will have grammatical errors and mistakes). Just Click to expand. Thanks audioburst!

E 179 Health Care Workers Mental Health Simon Maltais MD

00:00:06 – 00:05:10

Episode one hundred seventy nine healthcare workers mental health. I’m host that the justice trust claire. Today we hear dr simon multi perspective your joint award winning podcast host and bestselling author. Dr justin tros declared as people behind the curtain and talk to doctors and experts about their speciality marketing own life balance. Let’s hear a doctor’s perspective looking back to the show. I got some big news coming up soon but for now just know. This is my last hurrah in germany. By the end of the year. I will be out. It’s been a good two years especially during all the corona virus and restrictions that we’ve had ...