Vaccine refusers frustrate doctors
Amid staff shortages and burnout, many are finding it harder to feel compassion for the unvaccinated
Some COVID-19 patients stand out to the doctors who tried to save them.
“I can remember taking care of an older person in their mid-60s who should have definitely been vaccinated and was not,” said Dr. Rodney Borger, head of the emergency department at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton.
“They were critically ill and unlikely to survive,” he said. “To see the fear in their eyes and know that it was 100% preventable if more people would have been vaccinated … it really bothers me.”
Health care workers just want to help their patients. But 1½ years into the coronavirus pandemic, some are not just exhausted by the latest surge in cases but increasingly frustrated that
almost all patients who are sick enough to be hospitalized didn’t take a basic step to help themselves: getting vaccinated.
“We want so badly to help everyone and cure everyone, and we’re having them come in and be afraid and struggling for air, saying, ‘Oh my gosh, I had no idea it was this bad. Oh my gosh, I had no idea it could happen to me. Oh my gosh, I wish I had listened,’ ” said Dr. Angelique Campen, an emergency physician at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. “I feel like the medical community is screaming from the rooftops. How could you not have heard? It’s frustrating.”
That sentiment is shared by many in the general public. Three-quarters of eligible Californians have received at least one vaccine dose, according to the state. A CBS News poll last month found that about half of vaccinated Californians said people who are unwilling to get the shot “make me upset or angry” and 6 in 10 said they are “putting people like me at risk.”
President Joe Biden put it bluntly in an address Thursday announcing sweeping new vaccine mandates: “We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us.”
Dr. Jim Keany, co-director of the emergency department at Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, says health care workers are “at the end of their rope.” Keany says there is a “disconnect” when the public calls front-line health care workers heroes, “but then they don’t do the things necessary to prevent having to use our services.”
first dose.)
“Universally, people in the [intensive care unit] and ER are tired,” Campen said. “We’re being pushed to our limits because we have an increase in the volume of patients. They’re sicker … and we’re doing our work with limited resources because manpower is down.”
That’s been going on for some time, she said, but the issue of vaccinations is “almost like pouring gasoline on it.”
“As soon as I broach vaccinations with patients, oftentimes they will become very defensive. And I find that I have to explain many times that it’s just part of my medical history-taking, part of my decision-making, it has nothing to do with beliefs or anything,” Campen said. “It really makes some patients angry that I’m even asking whether they’re vaccinated.”
Working long shifts that are so busy she may have to
skip lunch and even bathroom breaks and then “to walk in and have someone get angry with me that there is no treatment or magic bullet, raising their voice — it’s hard. I’m giving it everything I have and it just is really hard.”
She said that while she wants everyone to be vaccinated, she respects the decision of those who choose not to, and doesn’t judge her patients for their beliefs or treat them any differently.
“But when I face people coming in now that have been listening to the wrong information or saying this wasn’t gonna happen to me or not wearing a mask, things like that, at this point it’s really difficult to be compassionate,” Campen said. “I have to be — that’s what I do, it’s my job. But it’s getting challenging to do that. It’s that way with everyone in this department.”
Dr. David Seigler, a psychiatrist
and chairperson of the Behavioral Health Department at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, said one big cause of burnout is physicians not feeling effective in what they’re doing.
Seigler said he recently met with the person in charge of the hospital’s residents.
“The residents were saying, ‘I signed up for this to help heal people. It’s hard to see so many not making it out of the hospital,’ ” he said.
He said it’s important for people experiencing burnout to seek help and the support of their colleagues.
“As healers and physicians, I like to think most are very empathetic, caring people,” he said. “If someone is frustrated, it’s not at the person, it’s at the issue.”
Risky behaviors
People engage in all sorts of risky behaviors — smoking, drinking too much alcohol,
eating unhealthful foods, taking chances with their safety.
“If your career’s in emergency medicine and you have a problem taking care of people who created their own issue, you’re not going to have a very long career in emergency medicine,” said Dr. Jim Keany, co-director of the emergency department at Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo. “I can’t really say I’m as frustrated with individuals for not getting vaccinated. I think they’re the victims of poor information, inaccurate information. I’m more frustrated with how easy it is to perpetuate the incorrect information.”
Even so, he said, it’s hard dealing with the sheer volume of unvaccinated people who are consuming the very health care services for which they showed such disregard.
“Health care workers are at the end of their rope,” Keany said. “There’s a disconnect
when people will say we’re health care heroes, but then they don’t do the things necessary to prevent having to use our services. A lot of us feel disrespected when people insist on not wearing masks or not getting vaccinated.”
Strong public face
Health care workers never want to blame their patients, said Borger, head of Arrowhead’s ER.
“Physicians and nursing staff have put up a very strong public face, taking care of anybody at any time” no matter what, he said. “Privately, it can be discouraging because it’s close to 100% preventable. When you look at the patient that you just put on the ventilator and family members are there and none of them have been vaccinated because of lack of desire or just politicization of the virus and the treatment, to me that is difficult to deal with. It’s like people drunk driving and not wearing a seat belt.”
He said more than 90% of the COVID-19 patients at Arrowhead these days are unvaccinated, but most are not “hardcore” antivaccine. They’re just people who hadn’t gotten around to it because they didn’t think they had much individual risk and now “realize they screwed up” and regret it.
Borger said he doesn’t like the idea of forcing people to get vaccinated.
“But for me the reason to get it has nothing to do with individual risk,” he said. “It has to do with preventing transmission in society at large. I like to call it a selfishness test. Are you willing to have a minor inconvenience in order to save the lives of others?”
There has to be a better balance, he said, between the idea of individual rights and societal responsibilities.
“When things get difficult, as Americans we’ve always pulled together and done the right thing,” Borger said. “I would hope people would do that in this situation with vaccines.”