Editorial: Voices from the frontline: the lived experiences of healthcare professionals in the workplace

The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how critical it is to invest in healthcare systems and develop professionals as assets to our local and global public health resources. It also ensured more attention was paid to understanding the physical and mental health risks of working in the healthcare sector to ensure proper protections. Most existing research on the experiences of healthcare workers focused on frontline workers during the height of the pandemic (Søvold et al., 2021). Yet, even prior to the pandemic, impacts of: globalization of care, staff shortages, advanced technologies, epidemiological transitions and need for new skills and competencies for 21st century were understood (Pruitt and Epping-Jordan, 2005). Healthcare professionals also face a variety of stressors including increasing workloads, surveillance, patient violence and lack of political support. Those risks have only been exacerbated by a financial crisis, increasingly hostile workplace environments, and even warfare now targeting healthcare professionals (Ioannidis, 2024). Furthermore, differing types of discriminations and racism against healthcare staff, from both patients and colleagues, are prevalent in healthcare systems worldwide (Okeahialam et al., 2025).