Opinion: Rebuilding the nation’s health care workforce during and after Covid-19: Lessons from disaster management
As an emergency medicine physician and director of emergency management, I have taken part in disaster and humanitarian responses in Sri Lanka after the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, in Haiti during the height of the AIDS epidemic, and elsewhere. I often experienced “reentry” afterward — the disjointed feeling of returning to the place and activities I had left behind. I never expected to experience reentry from working in my own hospital in Northern California, yet that’s what I am feeling today.
I know from experience that reentry often feels like an assault. Disaster relief workers experience stringent and unpredictable environments, and they may witness gruesome scenes or experience personal deprivation. The return home can be as jarring as it is a relief: responders often have haunting memories and feel profoundly changed, and they are prone to culture shock and post-traumatic stress.
