Preventable Pain: COVID Surge, Anti-Vax Sentiments Compound Physicians' Turmoil on the Job.

Abstract

Pushback from patients on medical advice and course of treatment is nothing new. But physicians say the degree of it - a lack of trust in science, medicine, and expertise - has never been as pronounced as it is now, in the era of the highly contagious delta variant, widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines, and millions of people who simply refuse to avail themselves of them. And it's piling onto the already-existing assaults on physician mental well-being - now increasingly framed as physician "moral injury."