The COVID-19 pandemic has justifiably deepened admiration for health care workers, who are risking their lives daily to care for patients. Are we taking this display of courage and professionalism in the medical community for granted? 

In a commentary for STAT, Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D., says we must be aware of the forces that threaten this professionalism. Leaving health care workers without desperately needed personal protective equipment is certainly one. Another is the tension between putting patients’ interests first and the market forces that drive health and medicine in the United States.

If there is another stimulus bill, Blumenthal argues, it must address the needs of health care workers. “The public should realize that the professionalism that undergirds the behaviors they so admire is potentially fragile.”