Invisible Moral Wounds of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Are We Experiencing Moral Injury?

Rushton, Cynda Hylton; Turner, Kathleen; Brock, Rita Nakashima; Braxton, Joanne M.

doi:10.4037/aacnacc2025280

Article navigation

Symposium: Enduring Ethical Issues: Looking Back, Looking Forward| March 15 2025

Invisible Moral Wounds of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Are We Experiencing Moral Injury?

Cynda Hylton Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN;

Cynda Hylton Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN

Department Editor

Cynda Hylton Rushton is Anne and George L. Bunting Professor of Clinical Ethics, School of Nursing and Berman Institute of Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University, 525 N Wolfe St, Box 420, Baltimore, MD 21205 ([email protected]).

Search for other works by this author on:

This Site

PubMed

Google Scholar

Kathleen Turner, RN, CHPN, CCRN-CMC;

Kathleen Turner, RN, CHPN, CCRN-CMC

Kathleen Turner is Clinical Nurse III, Medical-Surgical Intensive Care Unit, University of California San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco, California.

Search for other works by this author on:

This Site

PubMed

Google Scholar

Rita Nakashima Brock, PhD, RELM, MA;

Rita Nakashima Brock, PhD, RELM, MA

Rita Nakashima Brock is Senior Vice President and Director, Shay Moral Injury Center, Volunteers of America, Alexandria, Virginia.

Search for other works by this author on:

This Site

PubMed

Google Scholar

Joanne M. Braxton, PhD, MDiv

Joanne M. Braxton is Frances L. and Edwin L. Cummings Professor of the Humanities, Emeritus, William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia; President and CEO, The Braxton Institute for Sustainability, Resiliency and Joy, Williamsburg; and Adjunct Professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, Virginia.

Search for other works by this author on:

This Site

PubMed

Google Scholar

AACN Adv Crit Care (2025) 36 (1): 37–43.

https://doi.org/10.4037/aacnacc2025280

For all its power to terrify, COVID-19 can’t keep us from marveling at the courage of frontline human service workers all over the world.

Dr William P. Nash, US Navy, retired¹

This nurse’s experiences have been exacerbated by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but they are not entirely unfamiliar. Nurses have for millennia confronted and borne witness to suffering, especially moral suffering. Moral suffering is the “anguish experienced in response to moral harms, wrongs or failures and unrelieved moral stress,”² and it is triggered by witnessing, participating in, or directly precipitating situations that produce negative moral outcomes and imperil integrity and well-being.

The COVID-19 pandemic has escalated longstanding ethical issues within our health care system and its enactment of the structural inequalities of society. The frequency at which ethical dilemmas now occur does not allow for nimble adjustments to systems and often intensifies the distress clinicians experience. Clinicians face...

You do not currently have access to this content.

Don't already have an account? Register

Invisible Moral Wounds of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Are We Experiencing Moral Injury?

Cited By

Email alerts

JOURNALS

Invisible Moral Wounds of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Are We Experiencing Moral Injury?

Sign in

AACN Account

Sign in via your Institution

Subscribe

Short-term Access

Cited By

Email alerts

JOURNALS

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only