NEWS OF THE WEEK: Jenna Ortega found comfort in talking to former child stars
The Wednesday star began her acting career at just six years old, landing her first leading role at age 10 in the Disney Channel series Stuck in the Middle. In a recent interview with Harper's Bazaar, Ortega opened up about connecting with other women who grew up in the spotlight and how they helped her navigate the transition from child stardom to adult fame. In recent years, the 22-year-old has formed close bonds with fellow former child stars Winona Ryder, Natalie Portman, and Natasha Lyonne.
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ABC News
17 minutes ago
- ABC News
The moral injury of The Pitt is no fiction. Healthcare workers deserve to be heard
It's sickening to watch a healthcare worker trying to help someone, to save a life even, whilst lacking the right tools, or resources to do so. Not enough blood, donor organs, equipment, beds, staff. There are some moments in The Pitt, a 15-part Max series spanning a single 12-hour workday (with three extra hours of overtime following a mass shooting event) in an emergency room in a Pittsburgh hospital, which are gruelling to watch. Patients, shot in the heart, losing blood too quickly to replace, a young girl dying because she fished her sister out of a pool but couldn't save herself, the crimson underpants of a miscarriage. Bellies bulging, skulls slicing, flesh oozing, veins spurting. The hospital staff are peed on, punched in the head, splattered in blood, startled by rats that escape from a patient's clothing, blamed for unavoidable deaths. It's brutal. And still, they come to work. In a closing scene, the lead character, Dr Michael "Robby" Robinavitch, played superbly by Noah Wyle, says to the assembled staff, who are wired, exhausted, relieved and devastated: "This place will break your heart." He tells them to be proud of what they did, of the lives they saved, but that it's also okay to cry: "It's just grief leaving the body." The social problems blaze like flares through the episodes: fentanyl, homelessness, gun violence, custody battles, lost young men, junior doctors struggling to pay their own rent, a crowded emergency room that never empties. Underpinning it all is the trauma of the most senior doctor, Dr Robby. This day is the fifth anniversary of the death of the former head doctor, Dr Adamson, from COVID-19 complications, one that has weighed on Dr Robby ever since, as he was forced to eventually divert sparse resources from Adamson to a younger patient in need. Both died. They didn't have enough resources then, and are understaffed now. The moral injury is clear, and it is what grabs your heart throughout the show. Moral injury is generally defined as "the psychological, social and spiritual impact of events involving betrayal or transgression of one's own deeply held moral beliefs and values occurring in high stakes situations." The term was first used to described soldiers returning from war, who felt their moral code had been burned in some way. These were "transgressions that involve[d] people doing or failing to do things themselves (deliberately or unwittingly); and being exposed directly or indirectly to transgressions on the part of someone else (betrayal, bearing witness to grave inhumanity)." This can lead to a grief, shame, and a range of mental consequences, including depression, anxiety, lack of belief in people, justice, or particular moral causes. It was during the overwhelm of COVID that many first began to become aware of moral injury, and the literature on it has mounted rapidly in the past five years. A guide to moral stress among healthcare workers during COVID-19 was produced in 2020 by Phoenix Australia, Centre for Post Traumatic Mental Health. It describes moral stress as a spectrum: "In the context of COVID-19 a severe moral stressor would be, for example, a healthcare worker having to, due to lack of resources, deny treatment to a patient they know will die without that treatment." More common and less severe moral stressors would include "being unable to provide optimal care to non-COVID-19 patients, and concern about passing the virus on to loved ones." When there are systemic problems, shortages of staff, lack of money, insufficient organ donors, delays in treatment, and over-burdened medical systems with long wait times in or out of emergency systems, doctors and nurses can feel it deeply. Sometimes they are unable to help in the way they have been trained, and sometimes, they are too exhausted. It's the difference between saying: "We did all we could" to a patient's relatives, and saying "We did our best with the resources available, but it wasn't enough." This is why it is recommended that in ICU settings, triage staff, who assess priority of need, are separated from clinical staff. Studies have shown nurses also experienced post traumatic growth after COVID-19, with greater gratitude, a sense of their own competence and insight. But burnout of health care workers even before the pandemic has been well documented, and it is only recently that moral injury is being factored in. Around the country, doctors, nurses, midwives and specialists like psychiatrists have been resigning, signing group letters and protesting in the streets in recent years. This is often portrayed simply as a bid for more pay. This is part of it. But it's also a cry for recognition of the pressures they and the medical system are under. In January, 200 psychiatrists resigned from NSW's public health system, arguing that they were unable to care properly for their patients due to systemic decline. Professor of psychiatry Pat McGorry told the ABC: "It's like working in a third world sort of environment, to be honest — the moral injury of turning away seriously ill people every day and not being able to provide the care that people need and could benefit from." What is needed, he said, is for the NSW government to "commit to a plan to rebuild". A December 2023 survey by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists found 94 per cent Australian psychiatrists said the workforce shortage negatively impacted patient care, and 82 per cent said these shortages were the main factor contributing to burnout (which seven in ten reported experiencing symptoms of). In April, NSW hospital doctors walked off the job for three days, citing chronic understaffing, low pay and impossible workloads. Nurses and midwives have protested for better staffing, as have Victorian mental health workers. Let's remember, too, that doctors in war zones and third world countries wrestle with this in far more extreme, horrific circumstances. Imagine being a doctor in Gaza now, struggling to care for kids with blasted limbs and dead parents, lacking basic equipment and supplies. An MSF survey found 40 per cent of those who died of injuries there were under 10. We read reports of medical teams fainting from fatigue, heat and lack of food, of mobile hospitals waiting to gain entry. The accounts of Gaza's most senior doctors are hellish. When qualified, experienced people leave the medical system, we all suffer. Even watching The Pitt, when the long serving charge nurse of the ER, Dana, says she wants to leave after an angry patient gives her a black eye, you gasp at the thought that her obvious skill and expertise might be lost. If you snuggle under blankets with a cup of tea at night to watch compelling dramas like The Pitt, to worry about the pain on doctor's faces, the tears in nurse's eyes, the broken people slumped in emergency room chairs, just know that this is no fictional tale and the people who sign up to serve us deserve to be heard. Juila Baird is an author, broadcaster, journalist and co-host of the ABC podcast, Not Stupid.
News.com.au
5 hours ago
- News.com.au
NEWS OF THE WEEK: Justin Bieber: ‘Conflict is part of relationships'
The 31-year-old singer lashed out at an unidentified friend as he shared a heated text message exchange on social media on Sunday evening. 'I will never suppress my emotions for someone. Conflict is part of relationship. If you don't like my anger you don't like me.' He also shared a message declaring the friendship was "officially over" after the unnamed pal accused him of "lashing out'. Justin then insisted he had plenty of other good friends who would "respect" his boundaries and asked the mystery person to leave him alone.
News.com.au
5 hours ago
- News.com.au
NEWS OF THE WEEK: Michelle Obama pens sweet Father's Day post for Barack
Michelle Obama has penned a sweet Father's Day tribute to her husband, Barack Obama, after they shut down divorce rumours. "I love looking back at photos like this of when our girls were younger," the former first lady wrote via Instagram on Sunday, alongside a throwback photo of the politician and their daughters, Malia, now 26, and Sasha, 24. "@BarackObama has always been there for us no matter what - even when it felt like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. We've always been so grateful. To Barack and all the dads and father-figures celebrating today, Happy Father's Day!".
