Creative arts therapy programs can help health care workers dance, write and draw their way through burnout and on-the-job stress

If current trends continue, the U.S. could see a drastic shortage of health care workers over the next decade. LaylaBird/E+ via Getty Images

Doctors and nurses seldom learn in school how to tell a family that their loved one is not going to survive. Yet health care professionals face the immense burden of tragedy, illness and dying in an intensely stressful setting as a routine, ongoing part of their jobs.

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, research was documenting rampant stress and burnout among health care professionals.