NursingLink

I been in the medical profession for over 10 years, Yes I do. I love people.

Of course, when I go through emotional boughts like that, when I get my weekends.......I do alot of sleeping.   I get up for Church on Sundays but that's about it.   Then on Monday morning, I get up, let it go and head on to work to start again!

klwinsor says ...

A U.S. doctor cautions that medical professionals who see their patients die are vulnerable to compassion fatigue. Do you suffer from compassion fatigue?

I would be interested to see what context that this conclusion was reached. Who is the doctor that came to this conclusion?

We have a natural tendency to think of death as a failure. To be honest, there have been times that I was relieved that a patient passed away. I had some personal grief, and felt sadness for the family, but could take comfort in knowing that the patient was in a place that physical pain could not reach them. I have worked in hospice, and the mindset is very different from med/surg nursing. In the hospital, we code patients and work very hard to keep them alive. Out of maybe 3 dozen codes I have been on, only 2 patients survived and walked out of the hospital. Many of the others that we brought back lingered in ICU for several days or even weeks before passing on. The codes are very stressful, and you always hope and pray that you did everything right. For me, it is impossible to not feel emotion. For my own peace of mind, I give it all over to whatever God is in control of all this. It is not up to me who lives and who dies, or who gets cancer. I think about Farrah Fawcett. She had rectal cancer, which is very painful and difficult to manage, and she suffered for 3 years with it. I hope and pray her last moments were peaceful, and that her family can find some comfort in that. I think about her nurses, how hard it is to spend that amount of time with a patient and get attached emotionally and even spiritually. I do not fault anybody for not wanting to work in hospice. 30 people can see a car go in to a river, but only one person will jump in to try to save the driver. It does not make the 29 other people lesser human beings. It is just how we are made.

For me, I don't know how to hold back. I have a peds patient, a 7 year old girl, that comes running to me every time she sees me and takes a flying leap at me to hug me. I have given her shots, and taken throat cultures from her, but she is my girl and she melts my heart. If God only let me be a nurse so that I can be her nurse, then it is all worthwhile. There are some tough days as a nurse. I feel bad for the nurses who do not seem to have any compassion. Their hearts have turned to stone, maybe to protect themselves from being hurt, or they have had the compassion beaten out of them. It is such a huge privilege to be a nurse. Once you finish school and take that oath, you are not one of the regular people anymore. To whom much is given, much is expected ...

peace

Walt

I stand corrected on one point ... Farrah Fawcett had anal cancer, a rare malignancy. It is treatable and has a good survival rate if caught early. Maybe awareness will be raised now about it.

As for compassion fatigue, NL has an article posted on the home page now "6 Steps to Avoid Compassion Fatigue". One point was to say no to co-workers? Oh really? We are all overworked and have "too much on our plate". My co-workers know that they can ask me for help anytime. I recognize that some things take priority. Maybe Mrs. Johnson in 302 will be late getting her Protonix, but R.N. Lea's patient in 305 just pulled his IV out and Lea is starting chemo on another patient. I can go restart the IV for R.N. Lea and save her some headache. I have worked in some hospitals where the mentality is "every man for himself" and everybody gets very stressed out and burnt out quickly. When the atmosphere is of real teamwork, it is so much less stressful and friendlier. It is nice to feel that someone will have your back. It comes across in your patient care too.

As nurses, we have to take care of each other. We sure can't depend on the patients or management to look out for us.

I have compassion for everyone.  I think when I really experience the fatigue is with the patient who came to the hospital because they had a problem and then fight you tooth and nail when you try and help them.  We had a patient yesterday who came and had a TIA, but when the doctor didn't release him immediately he became a royal pain ringing every 5 minutes asking why he couldn't leave, genrall complaining about everything that was being done for him.  You at that point want to say " Sign yourself out AMA because we have patients who want help".  And then there was the patient who security brought back because he stepped off the floor with his IV pole to have a cigarette and then can't walk to the bathroom to urinate, he uses the urinal  and then rings for you to empty it.  And no he's not on  I & O, he's getting antibiotics by pic line.  This is where my compassion fatigue comes from.

my biggest disapointment when I became a nurse was how uncompassionate other nurses are.  i have compassion for all sentient beings. I try to see why people are behaving the way that they are. I enter a patient's room with my mind open and my heart open. If this person is unhappy and they want to displace it on me-- well that's ok. I do  not take it to heart. I have compassion for myself and my patients. I am still grappling with ways to have compassion for the burned out nurses who tell me, "he doesn't deserve to be here" or "we have people with real problems that need that bed." I have dealt with people who were pretending to be paralyzed so they wouldn't have to go to jail for the DUI accident they caused. I have taken care of the young adult who took 75 tylenol because  he was "bored". other people passed judgement on these types of patients. I say that they have other issues and while they are not "fixable medical" problems, they are problems nonetheless. Every one comes with their own unique background. Perhaps they were not taught coping skills, perhaps they learned to get attention through self distructiveness. Who knows, it is not for me to say. I just know that compassion is never misplaced. All people deserve compassion and the giver of compassion if better for it.