Stories about Covid-19 from health professionals in a hospital

Abstract

Introduction: the COVID-19 pandemic imposes high demands on health professionals and changes in the way they relate to patients, peers andfamily members. These changes involve emotional consequences such as increased stress levels, symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Objective: to describe an interdisciplinary project created under the Narrative Medicine model aimed at enabling the reporting of the experience of health professionals belonging to a highly complex private general hospital in the city of Buenos Aires during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methodology: a mailing list was created and hospital professionals were invited to make a written, oral or graphic production that represents their experience during the pandemic. Then, the received material was sent to the same distribution list on a weekly basis. In each email, the invitation to narrate what was experienced or to comment on the stories of others was renewed.

Results: over the course of seven weeks, ten individual productions were received: eight texts, one audio and one graphic. The main topics discussed could be grouped into three axes: COVID room, community and telemedicine. The authors were professionals from Medicine, Nursing, Psychology and Childcare.

Conclusion: we developed a project under the Narrative Medicine model that allowed professionals to tell their experience during the covid 19 pandemic, enabling the possibility of putting into words what was experienced, reflecting on models of action and elaborating on the emotional exhaustion generated by permanent contact with pain and suffering.