The HBO series “The Pitt” skillfully illustrates the extreme stress that frontline health care workers endure, just about every minute of every day. It also recalls the extraordinary sacrifices they made during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of those pandemic frontline workers, Dr. Lorna Breen, was the emergency room director at New York Presbyterian Hospital when stress, anxiety and depression overtook her. Fearing that she’d lose her medical license if she sought help, Breen took her own life in April of 2020. To honor her life and extraordinary commitment to public health, her family founded the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation to raise awareness about mental health support needs for health care workers.

During the Covering Workplace Mental Health fellowship, journalists were briefed about this topic by Melissa Armstrong, the foundation’s chief experience officer. Her organization’s efforts focus on changing the systems and culture of healthcare, rather than placing the burden on individual workers.

“We need to go beyond telling health workers to be more resilient,” Armstrong said. “They’re the most resilient people in the world going into this field, but we need to make sure we’re being supportive with them and the environment that they’re working from.”

Among many angles explored, Armstrong discussed the following issues:

• The primary drivers of the health care worker crisis are institutional stigma, barriers to accessing care, and job stressors like administrative burden.
• A major legislative victory was achieved with the March 2022 passage of the Dr. Lorna Breen Healthcare Provider Protection Act. It’s the first federal law to focus on the well-being and retention of the current health care workforce.
• A key initiative for the foundation was the removal of invasive and potentially illegal questions about past mental health treatment from state licensing, hospital credentialing, and insurance applications.
• Collaboration with a wide range of organizations, from federal agencies like the CDC to local hospitals and professional associations, is central to the foundation’s strategy and success.

Journalists can amplify challenges for frontline health care workers by producing contextual stories, Armstrong said.

“We need to keep sharing these stories… to help change that culture of silence and this longstanding stigma that exists that you have to be a hero and above others instead of being human.”

Access the full transcript here.

This program is sponsored by the Luv U Project, with associate sponsor the American Psychological Association. The National Press Foundation is solely responsible for its content.