Episode 73: Humanizing Our Heroes - Moral Injury in Healthcare with Wendy Dean, MD

Moral injury occurs when clinicians are repeatedly expected, in the course of providing care, to make choices that transgress their long standing, deeply held commitment to healing.
Moral injury is a form of trauma that can occur in any workplace. It is often a result of someone witnessing or participating in a behavior that goes against their beliefs or values. This can cause an employee to feel isolated and be less motivated and engaged at work — and it can have a lasting negative impact on an organization.
Moral injury and burnout often go hand-in-hand.
In this enlightening conversation between our SHE RECOVERS podcast host, Dr. Tiffany Wynn, and our guest, Dr. Wendy Dean, we learn the definition of moral injury, how and why it manifests, how the systems we live and operate under play into this experience, and how we can recover from it.
ABOUT DR. WENDY DEAN:
Dr. Dean left clinical medicine when generating revenue crowded out the patient-centered priorities of her practice. Her focus since has been on finding innovative ways to make medicine better for both patients and physicians through technology, ethics, and systems change.
Dr. Dean practiced for fifteen years as an emergency room physician and then as a psychiatrist. After leaving clinical practice, she spent eight years in leadership positions, overseeing medical research funding for the U.S. Army, and as a senior executive at a large nonprofit, in Washington D.C., supporting novel strategies to restore form, function, and appearance to ill and injured service members. She turned her full attention to addressing moral injury in 2019.
Dr. Dean is a regular contributor to Medscape’s Business of Medicine, blogs on Psychology Today, and continues to work in innovative fields with NASA, the American Society of Reconstructive Transplantation, and the Transplant Ethics and Policy Working Group at New York University Langone Medical Center.

Visit her website here: https://wendydeanmd.com/
Listen to her podcast here: https://www.fixmoralinjury.org/
EPISODE RESOURCES
SHE RECOVERS Support For Healthcare & Allied Professionals Support Group & Gatherings
The Healing Power of Stories : A Symposium For Recovery Professionals
SHE RECOVERS in Chicago
SHE RECOVERS® Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving more than 325,000 women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves and help other women to do the same.
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LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
SHE RECOVERS® Foundation Headquarters is located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Tewa people—O’gah’poh geh Owingeh (White Shell Water Place)—now present day Santa Fe, New Mexico.