#51: How to Heal a Moral Injury – Helping Healthcare Workers Heal Mental Wounds in the Aftermath of Coronavirus with Dr Dominic Murphy

Details

In today’s episode I talk to Head of Research at Combat Stress – Dr Dominic Murphy.

Combat Stress are the UKs leading charity for veterans’ mental health. For a century they have been helping former servicemen and women deal with issues like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression.

Today they provide specialist treatment and support for veterans from every service and conflict to give them hope and a future.

I think it would be a pragmatic choice to start discussing the mental implications of COVID- 19 on healthcare workers that have not only witnessed events but may have been involved in
some huge decisions that challenge our moral code.

I’m sure that you will find our discussion today really interesting and thought provoking.

On the podcast, we talk about:

• Dominic’s work as a Clinical Psychologist and PTSD with war veterans
• The extent of PTSD and predisposing factors
• What is a moral injury?
• The relationship between moral injury and PTSD
• Why look at moral injury – why do some people not respond well to gold standard treatments for PTSD
• What are we doing in the UK to explore moral injury
• Is moral injury relevant during the current COVID-19 crisis?
• Preventative measures with food, alcohol and exercise
• The prevalence of PTSD before the pandemic and what needs to change in both the culture of medicine and access to care

Please do be sure to check out the Combat Stress website where they have some fantastic resources and support available and also look up their social media pages – links below.

You’ll also find links below to the papers that Dominic and I discussed on the podcast.

I do hope that you find this episode informative and useful at this time, and I would really love your feedback on the episodes that we are sharing here.  Let me know on our Instagram, Facebook & Twitter pages. Please do give us a 5* rating on your podcast player if you enjoyed today’s episode.

We’re also going to be doing some more ‘Ask Me Anything’ episodes in the coming weeks too – so if you have any questions whatsoever – then again please do share these on my Instagram, Facebook & Twitter pages and the team will be collating all the questions and we’ll answer as many as we possibly can.

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Summary

“But on the other side actually, this is a time where the NHS is working together.  It’s working at it’s maximum efficiency and it’s important to remember that most people who get COVID-19 get better.  They do recover, they do leave hospital and it’s important to recognise that too”

Dr Dominic Murphy

 

Well what another great podcast guest and a super interesting conversation – and I think three great takeaways from our conversation today are :

• Awareness – that we may all be suffering with traumatic events at this time
• Access –  recognising that there are access to treatments and looking into what might be available for us
• Prevention – what can we do as healthcare professionals within our teams

 

Some of the organisations who can provide support at this time are noted below:

National Trauma Society

Clinical resources for NHS staff & the general public

Large scale research study exploring the needs of NHS staff

 

National NHS Staff Support Service:

 

Check out the video with Dominic on my YouTube channel here: