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A lot can change in two years. These days it’s often impossible to fathom life before we had to contend–physically and emotionally–with a global pandemic that has changed everything.
For our family, that change came suddenly. In April 2020, Dr. Lorna Breen, an accomplished NYC emergency room physician working on the frontlines of the first wave of COVID-19, died by suicide after treating the daily deluge of coronavirus patients she faced minute after minute, shift after shift.
Lorna, who had no history of mental illness, had grown overwhelmed by the unending surge of severely ill patients, not to mention being severely under-resourced and understaffed to treat them. As so many healthcare professionals can attest to today, she was far from alone in silently enduring these stresses.
Lorna was fully aware of the burnout crisis among clinicians even before the pandemic. She co-authored a study on the necessity of reducing those stresses months before her death. But when Lorna needed help, she didn’t receive it. As she told us, Lorna thought she would risk losing her medical license or being ostracized by colleagues if she sought treatment. Her death was a preventable tragedy that is resonating with more and more of us with each passing day.
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