Thursday 22 May 2025 | 12:30-13:00

Format: Workshop

Stream: n/a

Content filters: n/a

Having shared conceptions of solidarity across diverse groups is critical in times of a healthcare crisis such as a pandemic or in a national crisis such as a war. During a crisis, healthcare staff from minority populations might feel they are caught between conflicting conceptions of solidarity when their group is portrayed as not exhibiting solidarity with the rest of society or even posing a threat during wartime because of their presumed group loyalty. Healthcare workers from minority groups might feel a dual or conflicting sense of solidarity, and conflicting conceptions can contribute to their moral distress in and at the aftermath of crisis situations. Further, their moral distress could be aggravated when the healthcare organization’s climate is influenced by biased and stigmatized public conceptions of the particular minority group and when management fails to support the credibility of minority healthcare professionals. This raises questions about managerial responsibility and the special support minority healthcare workers need during crisis situations that negatively label certain groups.

In this presentation, Dr Maram Khazen will share her work regarding the contrasting experiences and conceptions of healthcare staff from the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel during two different consecutive crises situations. Particularly, how they experienced work stressors on the personal level and system level, what separated and what unified them with their in-group and other healthcare staff members, and their response to communicative appeals to solidarity. Additionally, she will describe how they feel moral distress and even traumatization due to their role as healthcare professionals from a minority population during a national crisis.

At the end of this session, participants will:

• Learn how minority healthcare staff might find themselves holding conflicting conceptions of solidarity during a pandemic crisis


• Consider the responsibility of healthcare organizations to address potential moral distress among staff from minority groups


• Learn how healthcare staff from a minority population conceptualize and respond to different types of communicative appeals to solidarity in a time of a crisis


• Identify workplace stressors in healthcare settings that emerge in health and national crisis times among staff from minority populations

Dr. Maram Khazen Harvard Medical School and Brigham, USA and Max Stern Yezreel Valley College; Israel