MHM Magazine

GUEST EDITORIAL O n the 27th of May 2021, SADAG in conjunction with senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at Tekano, Dr Cyan Brown, launched the documentary ‘A Quiet Implosion’ focusing on the untold narratives of junior doctors in South Africa. Lesego* had finally achieved her goal of completing medical school and had been placed to do her internship in a well-known hospital in Gauteng. She couldn’t wait to put all her medical training to use and looked forward to the challenge. However, in her first week, Lesego found herself completely out of her depth with the number of patients and the complexity of patients she was expected to see. She stayed late to finish her work every day and then started her first call that weekend, a 32-hour shift in the emergency unit. The seniors helped her when they could, but they were also busy, and the environment was very tense. She lost her first patient after a traumatic resuscitation and then had a drunken patient who tried to assault her until other doctors stepped in to help. She left shattered, and just went home to sleep. Things stayed busy for the next while and there was no space to process all the trauma she was seeing as there was simply no time. She vowed she’d never treat a junior doctor the way she was treated by some seniors, but as soon as she moved to her second-year internship, she became part of the same vicious circle of bullying that had attacked her, simply because that was the culture. Before long, Lesego numbed out to what she was feeling and stopped caring about herself and her patients. Nobody noticed as this type of burnout was normal here. She coped through forming many addictions and never speaking about it. Then Covid arrived and there was simply nothing more to give. “Why didn’t anyone warn me, help me, prepare me?” are the only thoughts that dominated in her mind. She hung up her stethoscope and just never went back. The trauma was too much. The system had failed her, as it fails to protect many healthcare workers “A QUIET IMPLOSION” IS HAPPENING TO OUR HEALTHCARE WORKERS By Dr Cyan Brown Medical Doctor and Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at Tekano Rosebank, Gauteng c.brown@atlanticfellows.org 6 | MENTALHEALTHMATTERS | Issue 3 | 2021 MHM