Joe Yacovelli, a senior nursing student at Central Connecticut State University, said he is concerned about entering into the medical field in these times. He said he began to worry when he started clinicals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In the heart of the pandemic, it was scary. And this is coming from a young and healthy person. I can’t imagine the circumstances for someone who is older and doing their job in those conditions. It almost felt as if we were training for war,” Yacovelli said.

Some nationwide healthcare workers have been struggling to take care of themselves throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the podcast, “Moving Medicine,” produced by the American Medical Association, Todd Unger, the AMA’s chief experience officer, and Dr. Christine Sinsky, the AMA’s vice president of professional satisfaction, discuss burnout within the medical field.

Some physicians and other medical professionals have been overwhelmed throughout the pandemic which is starting to affect their personal lives, mental, and physical health.

Sinsky said medical professionals aren’t getting the support they once had from their bosses and administration. They are also getting less support from their peers.

“We don’t have physician lounges any longer, where physicians would gather for lunch, share stories about patients, talk about what was going on. We don’t have radiology reading rooms or relaxed Saturday morning rounds as we used to,” Sinsky said.

Sinsky said that once these resources are taken away from medical professionals, they get less support. They are unable to wind down and relate to their peers like they once were able to.

Sinsky said that it is important to understand that burnout is a result of the institutions that medical professionals are working for and that the staff is doing as much as they can.

“One of the things I think is important for us to realize is that, while burnout manifests in individuals, it originates in systems,” Sinsky said. “The widespread epidemic of burnout among physicians is not because physicians are deficit in terms of resiliency. It’s because we are working in chaotic environments.”

Joe Yacovelli said he thinks administrators should be doing more for physicians, nurses, and other staff.

“Administration should be paying their staff more,” he said. “You’ll see more people go into this profession. Pandemic or no pandemic. The amount these nurses do doesn’t equate to their compensation for what they do. They should be doing anything to keep their nurses. Whether that’s higher pay, more time off, just anything.”

Yacovelli said he believes that once nurses are correctly compensated, it will help them emotionally and physically.