If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury in Medicine and Why It's So Hard for Clinicians to Put Patients First

An incredibly important and captivating book for patients, families, and clinicians detailing how were all hurt by corporate medicine Wendy Dean diagnoses the dangerous state of our healthcare system, illustrating the thumbscrews applied to medical professionals by their corporate overlords Required reading for all stakeholders in healthcare. Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error Offering examples of how to make medicine better for the healers and those they serve, If I Betray These Words profiles clinicians across the country who are tough, resourceful, and resilient, but feel trapped between the patient-first values of their Hippocratic oath and the business imperatives of a broken healthcare system. Doctors face real risks when they stand up for their patients and their oath; they may lose their license, their livelihood, and for some, even their lives. Theres a growing sense, referred to as moral injury, that doctors have their hands tied they know what patients need but cant get it for them because of constraints imposed by healthcare systems run like big businesses. Workforce distress in healthcaremoral injurywas a crisis long before the COVID-19 pandemic, but COVID highlighted the vulnerabilities in our healthcare systems and made it impossible to ignore the distress, with 1 in 5 American healthcare workers leaving the profession since 2020, and up to 47% of U.S. healthcare workers now planning to leave their positions by 2025. If I Betray These Words confronts the threat and broken promises of moral injury what it is; where it comes from; how it manifests; and whos fighting back against it. We need better healthcarefor patients and for the workforce. Its time to act.