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Date : March 28, 2024

Venting: COVID burnout?

After working at my LHD as a Covid epidemiologist, I’ve honestly lost hope in public health. This could be me overthinking, but I truly hate how politicized health has become over the last two years.

At this time, I’m weary of even pursuing public health— I loved it. Well, I used to. Now I’m fatigued by being underpaid and overworked. In Florida, epidemiologists are paid around 48k-60k. Other states such as Washington, Maryland, Cali, NY, have higher paying epi jobs for the same work responsibilities.

We’re either understaffed at our LHD or overstaffed with under qualified contact tracers. My supervisors and political figures have not supported our response as well as other states. I won’t disclose where I live but just know it’s in the south. I’ve wanted to share more cultural/racial data and zip code data… but we’re not allowed to release county specific zip code data to the public anymore.

So essentially our state data lacks substance and for all I know accuracy.

Moral of the story, I don’t know what I want to do anymore. I’ve gotten to the point where all of my coworkers are undergraduate students who just graduated and struggle with power dynamics. I have a boss who only talks to you when you need something. One of our ex-directors daughter is employed with the agency and she lies about her time sheet. My research won’t be as impactful bc of restrictions on data release.

TLDR: i work at an LHD, my job is not my passion, coworkers suck, boss sucks, underpaid, overworked. Basically feeling like my work is meaningless and I don’t know what I want to do when I quit this.

submitted by /u/1stgenphd
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