Why would we be surprised that so many Health Care workers are skedaddling?
In an article in the CNBC Business portal, Karen Gilchrist wrote: “According to recent studies, between 20 and 30% of frontline U.S. health care workers say they are now considering leaving the profession. Notably, one April 2021 study by health carte jobs marketplace Vivian found that four in 10 (43%) nurses are considering leaving their role in 2021 – a figure that is higher among ICU workers (48%)”
For all of us who work in the Health Care Arena, it does not come as any surprise that so many of our colleagues are toying with the idea of leaving the profession for good, or at least to find a parallel track with limited clinical duties. On the contrary. More than twenty years ago, we were shocked how the failed attempt by the Clinton administration to reform the Health Care coverage of Americans, literally wiped out the profitability and sustainability of many solo practices, including ours. At the time, we sat down with our wife to discuss options to assure our future employment; we decided to study, with humongous financial and personal sacrifices, both Master and Doctoral degrees in Health Policy and Management at Columbia University.
Note. The reproduction of this U.S. Navy recruiting poster was taken from Wikimedia Commons.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waves_recruiting_poster.jpg
Unfortunately many of our colleagues did not take any similar preventive steps and are now confronted with the stark reality that, even after the sacrifices they have made during the pandemic, they are back in the same exploitative work parameters of yore, with the added caveat that they might be dragooned for the next pandemic. The obnoxious understaffing of hospital wards, the relatively low pay, the long hours of an insensitive scheduling process that messes family life plus the rising incidence of Mental Health problems, worsened after the pandemic, with no foreseeable relief. A few of them are close to the retirement age and their plight will be brief indeed. But what happens to the thousands upon thousands of middle age-professionals? From our personal experience, we know that it takes a long time to efficiently re-engineer your career and stir it to more predictable and pleasant working waterways , compared to the always stormy clinical sea lanes.
A recent Department of Labor statistical study showed that almost half a million health care workers have quit since the start of the pandemic. When will it end? For starters, our politicians in D.C. and the statehouses should stop playing dummies. This is an ongoing tragedy that will have severe repercussions for the health of our children and grandchildren. And it will not be solved by just throwing money at it. Secondly, we , the health care professionals, should participate more in the associations that defend our interests, be at the national, state or local levels. It makes a difference. We confess that for may years we ignored these organizations but for the past few years we have tried to participate in the varied activities of the outstanding Florida Medical Association.
We will make our humble contribution by writing articles on these issues, which will constitute the needed scaffolding for our upcoming book Physician and Nurse Burn-out – Roots and Remedies.
Stay distant. Stay safe. Stay beautiful.
What do you think? Please tell us.
Don’t leave me alone.