Betrayal, guilt, shame: Trauma among health care workers comparable to that of combat vets Forced to ration care amid a deluge of Covid patients while others flouted safety measures during the pandemic, health care workers are left with "moral injury." NBC News

As Covid cases surged across the U.S. in spring 2020, comparisons were routinely made between war zones and hospitals in a state of chaos.

Health care workers of any specialty — from urologists to plastic surgeons — were recruited to help with the tsunami of extremely ill patients. Intensive care specialists were unable to save lives. Many thousands of patients died alone without loved ones because hospitals barred visitors. And workers were constantly terrified that they, too, would get sick or infect their families.

The war zone comparisons may not have been far off the mark: In a study published Tuesday in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, researchers reported that the levels of mental health distress felt by doctors, nurses, first responders and other health care personnel early in the pandemic were comparable to what's seen in soldiers who served in combat zones.

What health care workers faced early in the pandemic is a type of post-traumatic stress called "moral injury," said Jason Nieuwsma, a clinical psychologist at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, and author of the new report. ...