Opinion: How the conversation about moral injury in health care is changing
In the new book “If I Betray These Words,” I tell the story, with Simon Talbot, of Rita Gallardo (a pseudonym):
Deployed in the desert Middle East, confined to a military base ringed by Hesco barriers and razor wire, Dr. Rita Gallardo’s only escape from the horrors of the combat-shattered bodies of young service members was dreaming of the life she might build later. She imagined a husband equally enamored of country living, a sprawling farm, and a small-town medical practice caring for patients as she would care for her own family. But in the span of five years, Rita left two jobs when she struggled to get her patients the care they deserved, with the specialists she thought were best for their situation, all in the interests of corporate profits. She struck out on her own and set up a direct primary care practice where there is no one to come between her and her patients. But she’s paid a high personal cost for this freedom. Less than a year into this new venture, she sold the farm of her desert dreams, and her future remains uncertain. But at least for now, she’s healing from her moral injury by healing her community according to the values she’s long lived by.
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