This book is an important and welcome voice in the ongoing conversation about moral suffering and burnout in the health care community. Cynda Hylton Rushton, in collaboration with known experts, synthesizes current knowledge and an extensive literature review on these topics. The goal was to provide a shared understanding and language, resulting in a set of innovative strategies and tools that both individual clinicians and health care organizations can use to build moral resilience and a healthier workforce.

In the first chapters, Rushton describes the reduced moral responsiveness, disillusionment, and shame that result from unresolved moral distress. She describes short- and long-term consequences (physical, spiritual, emotional, and behavioral), and defines the moral “residue” that builds over time, resulting in uncertainty, guilt, frustration, and anxiety. Rushton explains the moral uncertainty resulting from power imbalances and abusive relationships all too common in the health care setting. This moral uncertainty can lead to...

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