Moral distress ...

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As often stated in BRT, our HC System is a disaster. If you don't have insurance, you die, simple as that. Capitalists controlling HC or an essential like access to water should not be allowed but they are and we are paying the price. Ask any HC professional as to whether they like the system they're in. Four letter epithets ensue because insurance companies, along with big pharma and so called non-profit hospitals, own their industry lock stock and barrel. If FDR had lived, the US would have had universal healthcare. He didn't and Truman caved and now we have this. Shameful says it all.

The young man was in his mid-20s when he came to see me for severe abdominal pain at my small community clinic. The pain, worse than any he'd ever experienced, had persisted for weeks and was getting worse. He cried out when I examined him.

I didn't know the cause of his pain, but I could think of possibilities, including a ruptured appendix, a perforated ulcer or pancreatitis. He needed an urgent CT scan and a surgical consult. The fastest way to get both was to send him to the emergency room.

But the man said he couldn't go. He was uninsured.

That feeling of ineptitude was a constant presence during the 13 years that I worked in public health clinics. I didn't know it at the time – and my struggles were always eclipsed by the needs of my patients – but I was experiencing moral distress.

The terms "moral distress" and "moral injury" were first used in a military context to characterize the torment felt by soldiers as they tried to process and justify their actions amid the cruelty of war. In more recent years, these terms have been used to describe the feelings of guilt, sadness and defeat felt by health care professionals when we know what our patients need but can't provide it

This is such crap.