rampant violence taking toll on emergency room doctors

according to a new poll , conducted by the american college of emergency physicians (acep) and marketing general incorporated (mgi), more than 80 per cent of doctors believe the rate of violence in emergency rooms has increased, with almost half convinced it has increased greatly.

“violence in the emergency department continues to threaten and harm emergency physicians and patients,” said chris kang , president-elect of acep. “over the past five years, emergency physicians have witnessed and experienced a steady increase in assaults made worse by the pandemic. this report underscores how attacks on emergency physicians, care teams and staff are rampant and must be addressed.”

the poll of 2,712 emergency room doctors, which follows up on a similar effort in 2018 , revealed that the frequency of violence is on the rise in emergency rooms in the u.s., a finding highlighted by the two-thirds of physicians who report they have been assaulted once in the past year and the one-third who say they have been subjected to multiple assaults.

while the virus has no doubt made matters worse, research just prior to the pandemic found that around 25 per cent of doctors were already being subjected to abuse on social media based on their race, religion or medical advice. this rate of hostility, which researchers said likely underestimates the scope of the issue, included coordinated harassment and threats at work, waves of negative reviews and having personal information exposed publicly. the more troubling cases included threats of death and sexual assault. women doctors bore the brunt of these attacks, with one in six reporting online sexual harassment.

dave yasvinski is a writer with  healthing.ca

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rampant violence taking toll on emergency room doctors

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