Contagious precarity: a collective biographical analysis of early-career physiotherapist academics' experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic (original) (raw)
Related papers
Academia in the Time of COVID-19: Towards an Ethics of Care
Planning Theory & Practice
The global COVID-19 pandemic is affecting people's work-life balance across the world. For academics, confinement policies enacted by most countries have implied a sudden switch to homework , a transition to online teaching and mentoring, and an adjustment of research activities. In this article we discuss how the COVID-19 crisis is affecting our profession and how it may change it in the future. We argue that academia must foster a culture of care, help us refocus on what is most important, and redefine excellence in teaching and research. Such reorientation can make academic practice more respectful and sustainable, now during confinement but also once the pandemic has passed. We conclude providing practical suggestions on how to renew our practice, which inevitably entails reassessing the social-psychological, political, and environmental implications of academic activities and our value systems.
Professional Life during COVID-19 Crisis: An Emotional and Ethical Dilemma for the Medical Staff
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness
At the end of 2019, China reported an unknown outbreak of pneumonia to the World Health Organization (WHO), and on March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospital personnel are constantly at the forefront of epidemics, risking their lives to perform their duties, and work in stressful environments while focusing on helping the patients. Medical staff are provide safe care and services with knowing that they are at high risk for infection 1 ; however, their rights as citizens, like those of others in society, might be neglected in the midst of such dilemmas and challenges. Because in crisis, we see them as the tireless medical staff.
International Journal of Psychology and Counseling. , 2022
Healthcare workers were among the primary sectors that stood on the frontline amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. They play a significant role in giving medical aid and services, especially at the time when the world requires them the most. In addition, because of their direct exposure to the pandemic, they faced a variety of challenges, including physical risk from excessive workloads, psychological distress, and financial difficulties. This study explores the lived experiences and challenges faced by healthcare workers amidst the COVID 19 pandemic, specifically: (1) to describe the experiences of healthcare workers amidst the COVID 19 pandemic; (2) to describe the challenges faced by healthcare workers amidst the COVID 19 pandemic; and (3) to describe their coping strategies. Given that, the study utilized an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) with ten (10) respondents from the community. Based on the study, the findings are the following: (1) All of the respondents were physically challenged. Specifically, the extreme risk and challenges brought by the pandemic caused numbers of healthcare workers to leave the job, which further resulted in an excessive number of workloads among those who stayed. (2) Aside from being physically challenged, the respondents were also psychologically distressed, which is mostly brought on by the fear of carrying and transmitting the disease among their family and community. Moreover, receiving insufficient benefits causes all of the respondents to feel unsatisfied with the compensation they received after putting in an extreme amount of work and exerting great effort on their job. Regardless, they maintained a strong and tough attitude to cope with the challenging call of duty amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, (3) seeking emotional, social, and financial support to cope with the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic provides a great help among the healthcare workers in such a time as the pandemic.
An ethic of care? Academic administration and pandemic policy
Qualitative Social Work
This reflexive essay examines the adoption of an intentional ‘ethic of care’ by social work administrators in a large social work school located in the Pacific Northwest. An ethic of care foregrounds networks of human interdependence that collapse the public/private divide. Moreover, rooted in the political theory of recognition, a care ethic responds to crisis by attending to individuals’ uniqueness and ‘whole particularity.’ Foremost, it rejects indifference. Through the personal recollections of one academic administrator, the impact of rejecting indifference in spring term 2020 is described. The essay concludes by linking the rejection of indifference to the national political landscape.
Pandemics, professionalism and the duty of care: Concerns from the coalface
South African medical journal = Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir geneeskunde, 2020
It is likely that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic will affect a large part of the world's population and will last for several years. Many critical ethical issues have arisen in the healthcare context. While response from healthcare professionals to participating in the care of patients in the era of COVID-19 has generally been positive, there have also been disturbing experiences on the ground. The practice of medicine is a social contract with humanity. Challenges have arisen because the patient is both a victim and a vector of the coronavirus. All humans should have a natural instinct to care for those in need. Ethically and legally, healthcare professionals cannot be expected to assume a significant and unreasonable risk of harm. While fear is understandable, altruism and interest in serving the sick exemplify the value of solidarity. Social harms like stigmatisation and discrimination can occur. Concerns have been raised regarding protection of privacy and respect for rights of inf...
COVID 19: a personal account of a physiotherapist
International Journal of Scientific Reports, 2021
Amidst the growing tentacles of coronavirus SARS2 in the densely populated Delhi (India), the healthcare workers and other essential service providers are working day and night to keep the city going. All are working with a fear, a fear of getting entrapped in the tentacles any moment. Here is a personal account of myself, a healthcare worker who got entrapped, thankfully not getting strangulated, having recovered early without getting trolled physically but certainly, psychologically, socially and emotionally. It is my first person account as being a patient myself, second person account as a caretaker of my family and a third person account as a therapist to my patients. Also, a note of physiotherapeutic management of COVID-19 is included.
2021
The research aims were to explore the lived experiences of Health Professional Staff (HPs) in Private Primary and Private Community Care during the COVID-19 pandemic and to compare those experiences of HPs. The objectives of the study were to explore the lived experiences of HPs, including their views and feelings and to compare the different staff groups. A qualitative inductive approach was justified because the research question is an exploration of participants views/perceptions and feelings and lived experiences that require open ended questions. The data collection utilized semistructured interviews, the data was transcribed and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological analysis. There were five women and five men in total that were interviewed, all had given informed consent and University Ethical approval was obtained. Interviews were conducted between December-January 2021. The main findings were ten major themes of 1. Health and wellbeing, 2. Positives, 3. Patients, 4. Staff, 5. Family, 6. Job commitment, 7. Remote Working, 8. News/media, 9. Communications, 10. Negatives. These themes were categorised to produce three superordinate themes that represented the impact of COVID-19 on HPs, these were 1. Interventions, 2. Alliances, 3. Professionalism. The superordinate themes of Interventions, Alliances and Professionalism were factors impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic across HPs personal, professional, and social lives positively or negatively, concluding that biopsychosocial needs are priorities during and post-pandemic employment to ensure health and wellbeing. The findings diverge between HPs job roles, work demands, patient population and job location. As part of a biopsychosocial lens, it is vital that these are considered in national or local policy and to ensure accessibility to marginalised groups such as young women, and those from BAME backgrounds.
Death and Resistance: Professionals on the Front Line Against COVID-19
Paidéia (Ribeirão Preto), 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic has intensely affected the quality of life and labor conditions of healthcare workers (HCWs). This study sought to understand the experiences of 16 professionals in medicine, nursing and physical therapy who work on the “frontline” of the new Coronavirus. A phenomenological design was used. Results were organized into four axes: (a) the impact of the arrival of the pandemic; (b) participants’ progressive exhaustion; (c) fear and coping; and (d) rethinking life and death. Experiences of anguish, anxiety, depression, and physical and psychological health problems stand out. It was possible to observe that the lack of national coordination, in addition to unscientific political positions, were felt as an aggravating factor for work demands, and that impotence in the face of the disease implicated in rethinking the meaning of life and death. According to the JD-R model, the need to expand resources and emotional support so HCWs can properly manage psychosocial risk...
Journal of Occupational Therapy Education
In the spring of 2020, graduates from occupational therapy (OT) programs across the globe were entering a world of clinical unknowns. The students from this graduating cohort likely had little to no education or training on how to deliver OT in the wake of COVID-19. How well prepared did these new graduates perceive themselves to be to enter a healthcare climate in a pandemic and what were their biggest concerns? The objective of this study was to understand new graduates' perspectives of the impact of COVID-19 on their future as occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs), and their sense of preparedness to address the challenges they might face. To do so, nine recent OT graduate students participated in semistructured individual interviews. First cycle data analysis used descriptive and in-vivo codes and second cycle coding used pattern coding to identify emergent themes from across interviews. Three themes emerged in data analysis that represented how participants saw COVID-19 impacting their lives and their role as OTPs on multiple levels of systems and practice. These themes are: 1) Micro: COVID-19's impact on work with clients; 2) Meso: COVID-19's impact on the profession and the provision of OT; and 3) Macro: COVID-19's impact on systems and structures. Based on these findings, implications for educators moving forward include: methods for preparing students to work with clients virtually and in a post-pandemic world; recommendations for developing strategies for working in unpredictable and unknown contexts; and, suggestions for addressing issues of equity and social justice.