The Heroes Behind The Masks

Abstract

This project is a podcast that centers around the problem of dissociation and dehumanization, both of, and in healthcare workers. The medical field encompasses a wide and ranging spectrum of jobs, and therefore, an even wider spectrum of people who answer the call to fill these jobs. However, these people typically sink into the norm of job-based categorization, and because of this, are only names preceded by nurse, doctor, etc. The barrier created by this phenomenon can often lead to dehumanization of healthcare workers and dissociation in a field centered around the health and well being of all humans. This project seeks to provide better understanding for people outside of the medical field as to the humanity and emotional stakes of the jobs taken on by physicians and other medical workers alike. Through interviews and research of other works done in previous efforts to achieve a similar goal, this project allows listeners to gain a better and more full understanding of the people that service them and their loved ones outside of a hospital or alternative medical care setting. By including an interview of a healthcare worker outside of a structured setting such as their workplace, the project provides a unique perspective that is typically untapped by those on the receiving end of medical care. This perspective includes emotions typically reserved due to the professionalism that is not only kept, but often expected in their chosen profession, as well as stories that display the relationships and bonds built in an often inversely stereotyped setting. In crossing these stories and conversations with the feelings and findings displayed in the attached works, this project develops an entirely new lense for those looking in on our modern day heroes- the men and women behind the masks.

The Heroes Behind The Masks – Episode 1 – Lauren Davila

References

Gleichgerrcht, Ezequiel, and Jean Decety. In “Empathy in clinical practice: how individual dispositions, gender, and experience moderate empathic concern, burnout, and emotional distress in physicians.” (PloS one vol. 8,4 e61526. 19 Apr. 2013) doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0061526

Hagiwara, Nao et al. “Racial attitudes, physician-patient talk time ratio, and adherence in racially discordant medical interactions.” Social science & medicine (1982) (vol. 87 (2013): 123-31.)

Paro HB, Silveira PS, Perotta B, Gannam S, Enns SC, Giaxa RR, Bonito RF, Martins MA, Tempski PZ. Empathy among medical students: is there a relation with quality of life and burnout? PLoS One. 2014 Apr 4;9(4):e94133. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094133. PMID: 24705887; PMCID: PMC3976378.

Romani M, Ashkar K. Burnout among physicians. Libyan J Med. 2014 Feb 17;9:23556. doi: 10.3402/ljm.v9.23556. PMID: 24560380; PMCID: PMC3929077.

Silva, Joana Vilela Da, and Irene Carvalho. “Physicians Experiencing Intense Emotions While Seeing Their Patients: What Happens?.” In The Permanente journal (vol. 20,3 (2016): 15-229. doi:10.7812/TPP/15-229)

Slocum-Gori S, Hemsworth D, Chan WW, Carson A, Kazanjian A. Understanding Compassion Satisfaction, Compassion Fatigue and Burnout: a survey of the hospice palliative care workforce. Palliat Med. 2013 Feb;27(2):172-8. doi: 10.1177/0269216311431311. Epub 2011 Dec 16. PMID: 22179596.

Weilenmann, Sonja et al. “Emotion Transfer, Emotion Regulation, and Empathy-Related Processes in Physician-Patient Interactions and Their Association With Physician Well-Being: A Theoretical Model.” Frontiers in psychiatry (vol. 9 389.)

Works collective, “The Reprieve.” This American Life, 27 July 2020, (www.thisamericanlife.org/709/the-reprieve)

Music used: “maria durch ein dornwald ging” by Dee Yan-Key. License found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/