Since the first outbreak of the COVID-19 disease in late 2019, the healthcare sector has been at the forefront of combating its rapid spread across the globe. Healthcare workers are tasked to save the lives of those sick with the infectious viral disease—putting themselves at risk of being infected and even dying from COVID-19. With such dangers associated with their current profession, the non-medical members of society began honoring healthcare workers as heroes to thank them for their efforts. However, treating healthcare workers as heroes is not the best way to show appreciation for their efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic because doing so only exacerbates the negative impacts on their mental health, eliminates opportunities for open discussions about improving their workplace, and perpetrates unrealistic and inhumane expectations towards them through the pretentious valorization of their professions.
The public's labeling of healthcare workers as heroes negatively impacts their mental health conditions because the ideals of self-sacrifice for the greater good associated with it pressure them further into putting aside their health needs. Cox (2020) argued that the concept of heroism assigned to healthcare workers, particularly during the pandemic, creates a negative psychological impact on them through "the implication that all healthcare workers have to be heroic" (p. 512). In this context, being heroic means voluntarily doing "supererogatory" acts, which are actions that are morally good but not strictly required. Doing so would mean associating oneself with the risk of injury or losing something valuable in one's life (p. 510). The hero label's underlying implication that healthcare workers are required to do actions that were originally not mandatory reinforces the idea that they have no choice but to set aside their personal needs for the sake of the greater good. Such an enforced mindset exacerbates the already existing mental health stressors that healthcare workers experience as part of their jobs. Thus, treating them as heroes is not the best way to thank them for their efforts.
Honoring healthcare workers as heroes also creates the idea that they are invincible and perfectly capable of overcoming any challenge because they are simply fueled with motivation to save lives. Because of this, they lose the opportunity to ask for assistance and solutions to their problems in the workplace and their job conditions. Williams (2020) pointed out that even before the emergence of COVID-19, healthcare workers had already been struggling with mental health problems (par. 4). With the viral disease now blown up as a deadly pandemic, the statistics on healthcare workers experiencing mental health problems are increasing at alarming rates (Lai et al., 2020). There is a cultural stigma of healthcare workers being viewed as immediately ineligible to fulfill their responsibilities once they publicly admit they have mental health conditions (Berg, 2019). These are enforced by social perceptions, such as the hero label, which reinforces the healthcare worker stereotype of being apathetic and invincible to any kind of physical, mental, and emotional stress.
However, this stereotype is the complete opposite of their reality. Healthcare workers deal with physical exhaustion from working long-hour shifts, mental stresses by making difficult choices about their patient's well-being, and emotional burdens of constantly experiencing the loss of a colleague or a patient to the disease and isolating themselves from their loved ones to keep them safe from potential infection. But since the public constantly reminds them of their "duty to care" through the hero label, many healthcare workers feel like they have no choice but to "own up" to the image, which is equal to what DeVolder (2013) described as "compulsory heroism" (pp. 748-751). As a result, seeking help from these stresses became a cultural taboo in the healthcare sector, preventing open discussions for workplace and job condition improvements. With the hero label stifling healthcare workers' opportunities to break down the cultural taboo of receiving help, it becomes apparent that it is not the best way to show them genuine appreciation.
Finally, the public's perception of healthcare workers as heroes imposes unrealistic identities that force expectations beyond their responsibilities and abilities. In an exploratory study conducted by Steege and Rainbow (2017), they found that within the professional culture of nurses, there is an imposed construct called the "Supernurse," an idealized identity that nurses should follow as part of their job. The "Supernurse" identity includes subthemes of guilt-tripping themselves in fulfilling their responsibilities, maintaining an image of invulnerability with pride, resisting the urge to ask for help from others, viewing all forms of fatigue as a sign of undesirable weakness, and downplaying their sacrifices to maintain an image of humility (pp. 23-25). Nurses consistently wear the Supernurse identity while striving to continue their job despite their stressful working conditions because they feel obliged by society's expectations of them.
This Supernurse identity requires the same actions and mindsets as the COVID-19 pandemic's "Healthcare Heroes" because they both demand unrealistic expectations from people with inherent physical, mental, and emotional limits. Under the disguise of being an honorary title, the hero label also implies a compulsory fulfillment of the healthcare worker's duty to care, upkeeping of an invincible image through avoiding any form of external help, and showing the public that despite their "superhuman" identities, they can remain humble and retreat to the shadows when they are not needed. With such unrealistic and inhumane expectations, many healthcare workers would rather not be deemed by the public as heroes because it only denies them the right to expose their limits and vulnerabilities as human persons.
While the concept of heroism can be a good source of inspiration to stay resilient in times of despair, it still has its limits. It may be easy for those who are not given the role of a hero like us, but for healthcare workers, it is not. Rather than treating healthcare workers as heroes, the public should treat them more as humans because that is what they are. They are neither perfect nor invincible, so people should not entirely depend on them to end the COVID-19 pandemic. This problem requires collaborative efforts that call on healthcare workers' skills and abilities as well as the public and governments' fulfillment of social responsibilities. The way to show genuine appreciation towards healthcare workers is through humanism, not heroism.
References
Berg, S. (2019, March 11). Physician burnout: Which specialties are least likely to ask for help. American Medical Association. https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/physician-health/physician-burnout-which-specialties-are-least-likely-ask-help
Cox, C. L. (2020). 'Healthcare Heroes': problems with media focus on heroism from healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Medical Ethics, 46(8), 510-513. http://dx.doi.org.tcsedsystem.idm.oclc.org/10.1136/medethics-2020-106398
DeVolder, B. (2013). Overcoming the Overcoming Story: A case of "compulsory heroism." Feminist Media Studies, 13(4), 746–754. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2013.805588
Lai J, Ma S, Wang Y, et al. Factors Associated With Mental Health Outcomes Among Health Care Workers Exposed to Coronavirus Disease 2019. JAMA Netw Open. 2020; 3(3):e203976. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.3976
Steege, L. M., & Rainbow, J. G. (2017). Fatigue in hospital nurses — "Supernurse" culture is a barrier to addressing problems: A qualitative interview study. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 67, 20–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2016.11.014
Williams, Z. (2020, August 19). Heroes Need Help, Too. US News. https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2020-08-19/health-care-workers-are-heroes-and-they-need-help