Kevin A. Roberts
Before attending medical school at Yale University, Dr. Jessi Gold, a physician and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. It’s this background that has her asking questions others don’t. “I’ve always been interested in how we train doctors and why don’t we have enough space to have feelings,” says Gold. “We basically train the emotions out of us.” Gold’s interest in the well-being and mental health of physicians has fueled most of her work, especially during the pandemic.
When did you begin to pivot your work in response to COVID-19? Because I’m pretty active on social media, I was reading what some of the health care workers on the East Coast were saying and was like, This is not going to be good—we’re not cut out to handle this sort of thing. I wrote to the person who runs our outpatient clinic and asked what we were thinking about doing to support the mental health of health care workers. At that time, hospitals around the country were focused on having refrigerator trucks and ventilators, but I don’t think anybody was thinking enough about having an emotional emergency plan.
What measures were put into place? We decided to have a hotline where people could call to check in. We asked our faculty if they would volunteer, and every person stepped up. So many people were willing to do it on top of their jobs. We created drop-in groups and extra mindfulness groups. I had more appointments so that faculty, staff, their spouses, and kids could get in quicker. Everyone really came together. It’s interesting how trauma does that—the pandemic brought people together.
“There is this belief that we can all just go back to life, as if everything is ‘normal’ and the same as pre-2020, and that is impossible. We are not the same people, work/school is not the same environment, and the people we interact with are not the same, either. It is important that we allow ourselves to feel whatever we need to feel and do not judge ourselves for it. I know we wish it was all joy and happiness, but a lot happened in the in-between time that we still haven’t talked about or processed and we might only be able to start once we feel physically safe and can take a breath. Take baby steps and don’t throw yourself into the deep end right away. Figure out what coping skills work for you and try to incorporate them into your day—even if those were things you figured out you liked to do because of COVID-19, you don’t need to lose them. That computer game or Zoom happy hour with your friends across the country can totally stick around.”
Can you talk about your use of social media in advocating for mental health awareness and acceptance during the pandemic? As health professionals, we’re taught that advocacy is central to what we do, but I think there’s some fear that being an advocate is political. I see everything I do as being apolitical and entirely focused on helping my patients live better lives. I’ve always tried to center mental health in every conversation. If people are talking about vaccines, there’s a mental health side to that. If people are talking about changes in the government, there’s a mental health side to that. Mental health needs to be in these conversations.
What advice do you have as we emerge from the pandemic? I think we assume or really want things to go back to normal the second that you get a vaccine, and that’s just not how it works. Often you feel worse because you get time, and one of the things that health care workers especially haven’t had is time to take a vacation, to breathe, to actually process what has been going on. I think when they do that, they’re going to feel better eventually, but I think it’s more likely that they will feel worse before they feel better. Sometimes people experience reactions from traumatic experiences much later, and that doesn’t make them weak or a lesser physician or nurse. Our jobs have been really abnormal. Even if your workday was the same, your day-to-day life is not the same. So you just have to give yourself a little bit of grace and time, and if you need help, don’t be afraid to get help. It’s a strong thing to need help and ask for it. We have to take care of ourselves as much as we take care of other people.
