Causing harm but doing good: Recognizing and overcoming the burden of necessary evil enactment in healthcare service professions

Necessary evils – defined as acts that cause physical, psychological, or emotional harm to victims but are for the greater good of either the victim or society - are an everyday occurrence in the healthcare industry across the globe and across healthcare service professions. Healthcare professionals are tasked with behaviors that result in pain and suffering (e.g. nurses providing shots to patients; oncologists communicating cancer diagnoses) for the betterment of their patients and stakeholders. Although these behaviors are professionally mandated, they can also be cognitively and psychologically taxing for enactors. The current conceptual paper explores the undesired effects of performing necessary evils and proposes various actions through which healthcare organizations can reduce the negative repercussions of necessary evil enactment on healthcare service professionals.