COVID anniversary shines new light on effort to support doctors' mental health

This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

As the fifth anniversary of COVID-19 lockdowns approaches, bipartisan lawmakers and medical professionals across the country are rallying behind a bill that would address a growing crisis in the healthcare field.

Dr. Lorna Breen was chief of the ER department at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Known by colleagues as a tireless worker who cared about patients and protocol, Breen committed suicide while on a short break in Virginia in the midst of the pandemic to get a break from the high-pressure world of emergency medical care.

A New York Times story quoted Breen’s father as calling her death a "casualty" of the pandemic and said she had no history of mental illness, but had seemed "detached" as of late.

Proponents of the Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Reauthorization Act told Fox News Digital that the mental strain, burnout, and stress of working in a high-pressure, life-saving field demand stronger support systems.

A recent study from a North Carolina healthcare group showed that more than half of doctor-respondents said they wouldn’t go into the primary care field if they could "do it all over again."

According to its proponents, the Lorna Breen Act provides billions of dollars in resources to help prevent suicide, burnout, and mental and behavioral health conditions among healthcare professionals.

Two longtime ER physicians who are leading the charge on the nongovernmental side of things spoke with Fox News Digital this week.

Dr. Randy Pilgrim – chief medical officer for SCP Health – and Dr. Bentley Tate, the emergency room company’s chief wellness officer – both have decades of experience working in the high-pressure field and said that now, as the U.S. looks back at the COVID-19 pandemic, is the time to bring this issue to the fore.

SCP Health works across 35 states and is a leading voice on mental healthcare for physicians, they jointly said.

Doctor wellness must be a major priority, and is often overlooked, Pilgrim said, noting that patients come to doctors to better their own health, and that it is, rightly for the patient, a one-way street in that regard.

"Patients can't be faulted for the fact that when they come to their clinician, their physician or other clinician, they really are thinking mostly about their own health and how they can improve that," he said.

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"For many, many centuries there has been this phrase ‘Physician, heal thyself’, which is variably interpreted. But in the context of this, it means the healthier the doctor is, the more available they are for the patients themselves."

"So, as mental health issues became more and more prevalent, more and more transparent, and more and more acknowledged that the stresses of the healthcare workforce are significant. It became very clear that destigmatizing that as well as providing resources to help, that was a very real phenomenon," Pilgrim added.

"Patients don't come to us saying, ‘Doctor, are you OK?’ But at the end of the day, they want to know that we are [well] and it's our responsibility to be that way."

Mental health strains on physicians were largely an "underground phenomenon" until COVID-19 put physicians’ well-being into the forefront of the news.

During the pandemic, gurneys were rolled out in front of overburdened urban hospitals, and physicians, both rural and otherwise, were working long shifts, resulting in burnout and strain.

"Physician suicide is the far end and very unfortunate far end of that spectrum," Tate said.

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"But there are so many people who are frustrated, who are weary. And the reality is, we all lose when a physician retires ten years before they thought they were – or 10 years into their career, with so many years of training [goes and] transitions into where they’re not seeing patients directly, but some other aspect of health care because they just got so frustrated or worn down or frankly, in a bad mental state."

When doctors step away from patients for such personal reasons, the entire healthcare system loses, Tate said. When physicians are well and in the right frame of mind, patients benefit.

Pilgrim, who has also worked directly to push for Lorna Breen Act legislation, added that there is bipartisan acknowledgment that U.S. doctors need Congress’ full support.

"At the end of the day, people realize this is about helping clinicians, but mainly so that they can help patients – But this is a patient-centered act. So, that's really easy to unify around," he said.

With the advent of DOGE scrutinizing every dollar the feds spend, there is also a new focus on how to pay for things like this act, Pilgrim added.

"People are looking for relatively small amounts of dollars that will have a relatively large and outsized impact," he said.

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"And this actually is another thing that unifies congressmen and women is that this is a relatively small money in the grand scheme of things. And if you can impact just a single physician and make them him or her better, the hundreds to thousands of patients that benefit from that becomes an exponential impact."

Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va. and Roger Marshall, R-Kan. – a doctor himself – are leading the Senate version of the bill, but did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who is joined by Reps. Jennifer Kiggans, R-Va., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., on the House version said Thursday that the act is truly bipartisan and that she will work hard to pass it so that "doctors, nurses, physicians, and all healthcare providers can take care of themselves as they care for their patients."

"Healthcare professionals dedicate their lives to serving their patients, often at the expense of their own physical and emotional well-being, and ensuring they have the resources to stay healthy is one of my top priorities," Dingell said.