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Compassion fatigue and the unvaccinated

This was in reply to an article on compassion fatigue I had posted on my Facebook page. The article was written by an exhausted physician caring for unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. My initial reaction was, Of course not. That’s my job! But it made me think, why was it that caring for unvaccinated patients seemed so extra depressing? I had never even considered unvaccinated patients similar to other disease processes that I care for routinely.ADVERTISEMENT. Medicine is exhausting. Hospital medicine is trying. No matter your specific role, when you work day in and day out in the hospital, you know that the sickest people in our communities are cared for in the hospital. We see the waves and peaks of all diseases year after year. We are required to be up to date on vaccinations if we are exposed and to minimize infecting others. We are tested for TB regularly. When needle sticks occur, we wait for results to determine if we will need to be on prophylactic medications. Will the HIV or Hepatitis test be positive? We see people die due to preventable and unpreventable diseases, deal with death regularly. There are not many jobs that deal with death regularly. I signed up for this, and I do what I do to help people and hope to make a difference

Courtesy and Author: Jazbeen Ahmad