Read on Twitter
I'm going to make a controversial point in this discussion but I think it's important (particularly because I haven't seen it voiced among the many responses to this thread):
1/ https://twitter.com/kari_jerge/status/1343698218853384192
1/ https://twitter.com/kari_jerge/status/1343698218853384192
Many HCWs are feeling demoralized and we have seen a lot of death and suffering, but too many are adopting fatalistic ideas about what it means to be sick with COVID. 2/
In the quoted thread, an expert whom I think is well-intentioned states that mortality after cardiac arrest for patients with COVID "abuts 100%." Evidence shows this is not true. When it is you or your loved one, the difference between 0 and 7% is vast. 3/ https://twitter.com/eemoin/status/1343910711890685954
I think many of us are feeling particularly impotent. It is hard to predict who will recover; we have remarkably few interventions to offer, and the ones that perform the best merely improve the odds by a modest percentage. 4/
Despite that, people do recover. Even elderly, critically ill patients with comorbidities. When you see a large volume of patients it is easy to round down the successes amidst a sea of despair. But when that success is someone's invaluable loved one, it is everything. 5/
Moral distress in intensive care it is a very old problem that existed long before the stress test of COVID. It is essential to the health of our workforce to recognize it and work to alleviate it. 6/
Nevertheless, moral distress cannot justify abandoning prognostic humility. If anything, we should learn from this year that we can all stand to be more humble. 7/7
