In Times of Overwhelm as a Nurse and Citizen, Begin with One Intentional Act at a Time
Hui-Wen (Alina) Sato, MSN, MPH, RN, CCRN
With the recent devastation and loss around our local Los Angeles wildfires as well as our country’s political disarray, one of the most difficult things about trying to remain empathetic, engaged, and informed as an individual and a nurse has been a sense of utter overwhelmedness.
I think most nurses are both empathetic and action-oriented, traits which can be helpful—but also sometimes crippling when we see needs for help and advocacy everywhere and don’t know where to start. Any action feels like such a miniscule drop in the bucket.
I was carrying this emotional, mental, and spiritual heaviness into work with me a couple of days ago. I sat down to get report on my patient assignment. My patient was so sick, so complicated; she’d been teetering between life and death in recent days. Her parents had been on a roller coaster of the worst kind. ‘Two weeks into this hospitalization, are we still holding onto hope for recovery? Are we gathering relatives to say goodbye?’
I knew I was walking into a space that was very loaded for the parents. They had seen many nurses, respiratory therapists, and doctors come through their doors. For as long as they had been in our unit, […]
