I realized I never processed what I witnessed, experienced, and lived through. I put it all in a box so I could keep going to work. I sealed the box so that nothing could escape and distract me from the mission at hand: caring for critically ill patients.

Amanda S. Xi, a critical care anesthesiologist in the Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, discusses how institutions can help trainees who experienced trauma while caring for patients during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The essay read in this episode was published in the Teaching and Learning Moments column in the January 2022 issue of Academic Medicine. Read the essay at academicmedicine.org.