There has always been a lot of heart in the practice of medicine – literally and figuratively. Typically, the focus is on the beating heart of the patient. But has the pandemic, unlike any challenge to the medical profession before, impacted the hearts of front-line healthcare workers themselves?
Medicine is “a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head.” These words of Sir William Osler, a founding figure of modern medicine, were a warning as much as a motivation. A contemporary of Osler, Dr. Maude Abbott, a cardiac pathologist, was one of Canada’s earliest women in medicine. Her calling was challenged by refusal of entry to medical school. (She was barred from entrance to McGill’s medical program due to her gender. Bishop’s College graduate her in 1894.) But she was driven to be a doctor.
Are would-be doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals so keenly motivated today? That medicine requires emotional and physical fortitude is understood. But is there now a price to be paid in heart health?
Miners know that even with the best safety equipment, they are often working in dangerous environments. Bus drivers know the sedentary nature of their jobs can place them at increased risk for cardiovascular disease. Test pilots are probably most acutely aware that their jobs could kill them.
But do healthcare workers know the calculus? How are emerging trainees perceiving their future?
In 1945, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that “physicians die of coronary-artery disease at the same age as the average person with the disease.” Since then, it would seem doctors got healthier. In pre-pandemic 2019, JAMA Network published a study showing the “incidence of cardiovascular death was 52 per cent lower among physicians than the general population.”
Medical careers have always involved long hours and stressful situations. But the pandemic has resulted in extreme exhaustion for many healthcare workers. According to Dr. Susan R. Bailey, the president of the American Medical Association, “A lot of physicians were hanging on by a thread from burnout before the pandemic even started.”
Now, new research is showing a relationship between chronic stress and heart disease. A study published last year in JAMA Psychiatry reported that people who suffered from four or more depressive symptoms were 20 per cent more likely to experience cardiovascular disease or death.
What are some of these symptoms? Uncomfortable emotional stress that persists. Situations that generate a sense of dread or anxiety. Traumatic life experiences. These may be the symptoms of patients with PTSD, anxiety disorders or depression. But they also read like the everyday work environment of our frontline healthcare workers.
Time will tell the outcome, but this research suggests that pandemic-era workers in the health sector are at increased risk of heart disease.
Doctors should know the benefits of prevention. But they are trained in treatment.
So a word of advice. For many, chronic stress isn’t going to evaporate anytime soon. In the interim, the best way to take care of the heart is to arm that most precious of muscles with the ingredients needed for long-term performance. That is, regular exercise and rest, balanced nutrition, and a daily maintenance routine.
Keep arteries clear of plaque build up. Vitamin C in high doses combined with lysine lowers cholesterol levels for a safe, natural defence force against heart disease and an alternative to drugs.
Dr. W. Gifford-Jones and Dr. Diana Gifford-Jones can be reached at contact-us@docgiff.com.