Moral Resilience: Transforming Moral Suffering in Healthcare

Suffering is an unavoidable reality in healthcare. Not only are patients and families suffering, but more and more the clinicians who care for them are also experiencing distress. The omnipresent, daily presence of moral adversity is, in part, a reflection of the burgeoning complexity of healthcare, the clinician's role within it, and the expanding range of available interventions that must be balanced with competing demands. There is an urgent need to design solutions that address the myriad factors that create the conditions for imperiled integrity within the healthcare system.

Moral resilience is a pathway to transform the effects of moral suffering in healthcare. Cynda Hylton Rushton and colleagues offer a novel approach to addressing moral suffering that engages transformative strategies for individuals and systems alike and leverages practical skills and tools for a sustainable workforce. By taking this approach, healthcare professionals will be able to dismantle the systemic patterns that impede ethical practice, do so with integrity, competence, and wholeheartedness. This is a must-read for clinicians and front line-nurses, physicians, system leaders, and policymakers, as it will require collective collaboration, aligned values, shared language, and intentional design to make our healthcare organizations and their clinicians healthy again.