HJAR Mar/Apr 2026

In my position, I speak with providers often. Usually, they reach out when something is wrong. We hear from communications teams when something is right — and that matters. But it is the “something is wrong” calls that should concern us most. Not just as healthcare professionals, but as a human race. Contrary to popular belief when we are young and feel invincible, we are all going to die. The majority of us will decline first. Many of us will require care. And some of themost sobering conversations I have are with providers who suddenly find themselves on the receiving side of the system — the very system they spent a career inside. The one where they believed the right thing was being done. The one where they were empowered decision-makers for the throngs of people who came to them for healing. When my husband — a former healthcare administrator — was diagnosed at 52 with glioblastoma and prepared for brain surgery, he said to me, “Well, this is going to be interesting to be on this side.” He watched carefully how he was treated. He took quality notes — never to the care team, but to me. Most of what we experienced was good. Some of it was not. And the “not”matters. Because small indignities accumulate. They are rarely reported. You are suddenly at the mercy of someone who is treating you less carefully than you know you deserve — and you are afraid to speak up because they now control so much of your well-being. If a patient is fortunate enough to have a caregiver who loves them fiercely, please understand: that person is suffering too. Silently. Because to express too much distress might burden the one they are trying to hold steady. I remember stepping away briefly to see a physician for myself. On the intake form, I was asked whether I felt depressed more than three times a week. Yes. The intake staff became alarmed and handed me additional mental health forms. As I began filling them out, the physician — who had treated my husband the week before — quietly took them from my hands and said, “You have caregiver burnout. It’s a thing.” No one had told me it was a thing. It wasn’t until I reached out to a grief counselor that I heard another word: trauma. “Trauma?” I asked, incredulous. “Yes,” she said. “You were living alongside terminal brain cancer. Every time you quickly cleaned a sheet so he would not see the hair that had fallen out. Every time you figured out how to lift him after a fall. Every moment of vigilance — knowing the outcome, but never knowing the timing — that is trauma.” Caregiver burnout is not weakness. It is sustained hyper-awareness. It is love under pressure. It is responsibility without relief. This issue focuses on aging and caregiver strain, not as policy abstractions, but as lived experience across Arkansas. If there is one thing I ask you to take away from this edition, it is this: Please help uplift both the patient and the caregiver. In many cases, the patient would not be there without the caregiver. And unless you have walked in those shoes, you cannot fully understand the weight of them. For those who have been on the receiving end — you know. For those who have not yet been there, please push empathy forward now. Because one day, you may find yourself on the other side of the bed. And when that day comes, you will want the person standing over you to understand. EDITOR’S DESK Dianne Marie Normand Hartley President and Chief Editor US Healthcare Journals editor@healthcarejournalar.com HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS  I  MAR / APR 2026 7