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'I had someone call in from her closet' | GW professor creates mental health hotline for first responders amid pandemic

The hotline has only been active for a week, but Dr. Suzan Song says they've had to increase staffing from one person per hour to two because the need is so great.

WASHINGTON — Have you heard of "Emotional PPE?"

According to Dr. Suzan Song, director of the Division of Child, Adolescent and Family Psychiatry at George Washington University, emotional PPE is a term we all need to better understand because of its function in protecting the mental health of our first responders.

"Emotional PPE is the equipment that we need to protect ourselves from the emotional suffering that comes from vicarious trauma – the moral injuries that all healthcare workers are experiencing," said Song. 

So what does emotional PPE look like?

"Validation goes a long way," Song said. "Just to validate and say, you know what, we understand, and we appreciate you."

In the way that PPE like masks, gloves and medical gowns help protect health care workers from contracting COVID-19, Song says emotional PPE helps health care workers protect their mental health during this pandemic.

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"Right when the pandemic was starting in the U.S., a lot of physicians turned to social media," said Song. "They were talking about how they can’t sleep at night, they can’t enjoy time with their families, they were having panic attacks."

Song feared those cries for help could escalate.

"Unfortunately, physicians have a higher rate of completed suicides than the rest of the population," Song said.

That’s why Song and a few colleagues started a physician hotline for first responders who need to speak to a mental health professional during this pandemic.

"We had over 500 volunteers within the first four days," Song said.

Those volunteers give first responders some tools to better manage the trauma they are experiencing.

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"Just yesterday I had someone call in from her closet," Song said. "She was really, really struggling, having a hard time. Not just with the management in the hospital, but physicians are real people too, so we have children who have mental health issues, we’ve got arguments with our spouse already. General life stuff." 

The hotline has only been active for about a week, but Song says her team has already had to increase staffing from one person per hour to two because the need is so substantial.

Song quoted the Hippocratic oath: "Do not harm" 

"It’s embedded in us," Song said. "But then to have to go into a setting where you might harm yourself, but also that we can be contracting the virus and then we take it home to our families and our loved ones." 

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Song refers to that inner turmoil as moral injury.

"The moral injury can be sometimes worse than this barrage of the trauma and the stress and being overworked," Song said.

But, she says, the government isn’t taking the need for emotional PPE seriously enough.

"The trust is gone towards the government, at least from the physician's side. I think a lot of physicians just decided, you know, we can’t trust that they’re acting on our behalf or that of the Americans, so we really need to take this into our control and start more from the bottom up," Song said.

Since COVID-19 became a pandemic in the United States, Congress has approved three COVID19 packages. They have allocated hundreds of billions of dollars for health care, but, Song says, none of that funding has been dedicated specifically to mental health. 

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