The Many Masks Nursing Students Wear

In my experience, nursing students often have an intense drive, intelligence, curiosity, and resilience to get them through the two years of the specialty courses in our BSN program. But sometimes the strain of the many demands and new experiences can be overwhelming, and over the years I have had numerous students come to my office for reassuring words and a safe space to reveal their struggles.

Amidst the rigors of nursing school (and their nursing careers to come), it’s important that students find a way to balance studying with self-care. We all wear masks in our lives; in fact, they are essential. Here are some of the masks that I’ve noticed students adopt when they feel particularly under pressure.

Always smiling.

When I was a student almost 20 years ago, I was stressed more days than I was happy. While everyone has a different temperament, I know I was not alone in this. As an educator, I’ve noticed that some students seem to be always smiling, as if the smile is frozen on their faces. There are some real advantages to friendly, caring smiles from a nurse, in that they can help build rapport with patients who are in a vulnerable position. But in some cases, by always smiling, the students may be trying to live up to […]

2022-12-12T10:08:10-05:00December 12th, 2022|Nursing, nursing students|0 Comments
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Nurses: In the Face-Off With COVID, We’re Doing ‘Alright’

We did alright during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We’ve done alright during Ebola. We’re doing alright during COVID. We’ve done alright through war, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, and typhoons. We’re neither politicians, nor business owners; we’re not in banking or finance (though some of us might have a side hustle or two).

We’re nurses, and we show up.

Let’s be clear, alright is not “OK,” it’s not “good,” and currently it’s “head barely above water.” Alright is persistence, though, and it’s perseverance. We’re all suffering. Those of us who have worked in past epidemics are having flashbacks, we still don’t have enough protective gear, and we’re scared to death of bringing COVID home to our loved ones.

Here’s a real gem, to boot: When COVID started and picked up exponential speed in the U.S., we were touted as heroes. And now as the waves of cases roll in again, because of the extraordinary financial hit that health care has taken we’re the first to be flexed off and furloughed.

“Hey hero, thanks for your service! We can’t pay you any longer. Good luck.”

Why we keep showing up.

But we’re doing alright, and this is why: There is a sense of profound meaning in the work that we do. As impossible as it is some days, when we provide patient […]

2020-08-03T09:54:30-04:00August 3rd, 2020|COVID-19, infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective, Public health|3 Comments
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Addressing Clinician Mental Health and Suicide Risk During the Pandemic

Pandemics are known to cause panic disorder, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, and posttraumatic stress. Depression can lead to suicide if not treated, yet is a treatable disease. We have seen nurses die by suicide during this pandemic in Italy.

Past experience suggests that health care workers exposed to the stress of the pandemic will need help long after the pandemic is under control.

I am serving as co-chair of the Strength Through Resilience task force of the American Nurses Association, whose focus was originally to collate resources to reduce suicide among nurses. We quickly shifted gears when the pandemic hit to collate resources to optimize resiliency and mental health among nurses in relation to the projected impact of the pandemic. Curiously, these resources are virtually identical. The ANA has posted initial resources as part of their Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation campaign and is and building more resources as quickly as possible.

Nurses already at higher suicide risk.

The added stress of the pandemic is particularly problematic because of evidence that emerged before the pandemic that nurses were at higher risk of suicide than the general public. If leaders at health care organizations have not already started proactively screening staff […]

2020-05-12T16:27:31-04:00May 12th, 2020|COVID-19, mental illness, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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Addressing Health Care Worker Trauma with an Off-Site, Overnight Workshop

Everyone experiences loss and other personal trauma, but those of us who work in health care are obliged to cope with our own personal grief and stress as well as witness the suffering and pain of our patients. Do these words ever describe you at the end of a shift at work?

” . . . angry . . . anxious . . . hopeless . . . stressed . . . depleted . . . depressed . . . frazzled . . . “

One health system gets serious.

There’s a lot of talk these days about addressing clinicians’ burnout, and in some workplaces staff now are offered a meditation room, or aromatherapy or massage.

But since 2013, Montefiore Health System in Bronx, New York, has seriously invested in their staff’s mental and emotional health by offering a two-day, off-site experiential and educational workshop twice a year. And by paying for the program, retreat center, and meals for all participants so that staff can attend for free.

In “Helping Care Providers and Staff Process Grief Through a Hospital-Based Program” in the July issue of AJN, Ronit Fallek and colleagues share their experiences in developing this program along with their analysis of feedback about its effectiveness. They offer enough detail to confirm […]

2019-07-25T11:18:15-04:00July 25th, 2019|Nursing, nursing career, wellness|0 Comments
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Suicide Among Nurses: Poorly Documented and Unacknowledged

Photo © Wavebreakmedia Ltd UC25/ Alamy Stock Photo

When we all worked eight-hour shifts, “my” shift was evenings. Most nights I reported off to the same night nurse, a woman about my age who was an excellent nurse and also simply a nice person to be with. One evening I came to work to learn that my new friend would not be at work for a while. She had tried to kill herself.

A surprising lack of suicide data for nurses.

Did you know that there are national data on the suicide rates of physicians, teachers, police officers, firefighters, and military personnel, but none pertaining to suicides of nurses? Or that many hospitals have long offered screening for suicide risk to medical staff and medical students, but not to nurses? The lead news story in this month’s AJN, “Suicide Among Nurses,” highlights these and other findings of a recent National Academy of Medicine discussion paper, “Nurse Suicide: Breaking the Silence.”

Many reasons for this silence.

Judy Davidson, a nurse scientist at the University of California San Diego and the lead author of this paper, points out that there are many reasons for the silence around this issue. She notes that suicide data in general are […]

2018-08-20T09:32:01-04:00August 20th, 2018|Nursing|2 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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