Join us on Friday, March 26th for the companion event to this symposium.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the health care workforce? And how will the pandemic reshape the health care workforce going forward?
It is not hard to find news stories about insufficient personal protective equipment, burnout, and the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on health care workers. But on the ground, in the day-to-day, what has serving on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic been like for health care workers, in their own words?
We asked a broad range of health care workers — including ICU and ED nurses and physicians, medical and nursing students, emergency medical technicians, and leaders of professional groups within the health care sector — for narrative reflections on their experiences during the pandemic, with an eye toward the future: how can we learn from these experiences and better support their needs going forward?
Their answers form our latest digital symposium. Follow the conversation and share the articles in this symposium using #FutureHCW.
![]()
Family caregivers hold a critical role in the health care system and the economy, but do not receive adequate support
Read more
Shoring up the health system and its workforce should be a national priority post-pandemic.
Read more
Despite our limited skills, we preclinical students sought to expand the scope of what medical students could do during a
Read more
Family caregivers hold a critical role in the health care system and the economy, but do not receive adequate support
Read more
I have noticed increased distress among both health care providers and family caregivers as patients are getting ready to discharge
Read more
As the United States rethinks its health care priorities and investments, we must not forget the millions of nurses who
Read more
The home health care industry faces a severe shortage of workers who can answer the need of this country’s growing
Read more
Post-pandemic, the experience-complexity gap for nurses will continue to widen and affect intensive care unit orientation and education.
Read more
Supporting doctors and health care workers during times of crisis requires making concrete plans in advance for the worst case
Read more
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need to rethink and reeducate our nurses on how best to protect their patients
Read more
Health care institutions have a responsibility to move from performative to intentional commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Read more
Where the money lies in medicine is in tests and procedures; not in diagnostic problem-solving skills, patient counseling, and end-of-life
Read more
The pandemic could be a tipping point that leads many nurses to change careers, leave their jobs, or retire early.
Read more
COVID-19 has put the lives of athletes in peril for years to come, the extent of which we likely won’t
Read more
I worry that my hesitancy to remove my gloves and touch my patient’s hand limits my ability to connect with
Read more
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated long-standing gender inequities in academic medicine.
Read more
Contingency plans must be developed to address future health crises and mitigate the drawbacks of a highly specialized medical workforce.
Read more
Policy changes could help address the suffering this workforce has experienced and facilitate their continued care for people with serious
Read more
We need help. If we don’t receive this supporting cast, there might not be anyone left to play the role
Read more
The reshaping of the health care landscape due to the pandemic has reduced new cancer diagnoses by over 50% for
Read more
Our health care workforce, as well as patients and their families, deserve better medicine in the sensitive and tenuous time
Read more
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed persistent, wide-ranging existential threats to effective 911 emergency response.
Read more
As devastating as working on the frontlines of the pandemic has been, I am hopeful that it may be a
Read more
The institutional shortcomings we had long tolerated and adapted to were laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read more
When you feel complicit in such deep structural dysfunction, it is incredibly difficult to feel heroic.
Read more
One year after the start of the pandemic, I fear the end is not in sight. In fact, I believe
Read more
Editor-in-Chief: Chloe Reichel
Back to Symposia Library
