Making Do During a Pandemic: Morally Distressing and Injurious Events

Zuzelo, Patti Rager

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has placed nurses and other health care professionals in morally distressing situations related to personal safety, resource allocation, and family versus public care needs Making do, referring to managing with insufficient means, has been the norm of pandemic testing and care Health care professionals and essential employees at the sharp point of care and service have been required to pay the price associated with this new normal Some have described these crushingly difficult circumstances as contributing to moral injury and moral distress Nurses, physicians, and other essential professionals are affirmatively responding to demands for their services while acknowledging that necessary clinical equipment and protective gear are unavailable in the quantities required for safe care delivery Moral injury is unique from moral distress Moral injury has its roots in war and was diagnosed in veterans harmed after perpetrating, failing to thwart, or witnessing acts that violated their deeply held moral convictions and expectations