We had all just started our shift when the code bells alarmed. We ran to the room, and someone was already performing CPR. After several rounds, our Attending Physician sadly announced the time of death and we braced ourselves for the mom's agonizing screams. Our chaplain, social worker, respiratory therapist, care partners, and physician colleagues … Continue reading Sharing in the Loneliness of Extraordinary Suffering: A Nurse’s Quiet Burden
professionalism
Healthcare Workers are from Mars, Patients and Families are from Venus
Earlier this week, a panel of colleagues at my hospital participated in an Ethics Grand Rounds where they discussed the topic, "When Parents Question Our Expertise: Trust Alliance, and Boundaries in Pediatric Care." As you can imagine, the conversation was full of stories about tensions with patients' family members, personal/shared struggles when we feel fractures … Continue reading Healthcare Workers are from Mars, Patients and Families are from Venus
The Ethical Use of our Therapeutic Connections with Patients’ Families
“What would you do, doctor?” The family had been explicit in wanting straightforward communication about their child, whose neurological disease had progressed to the point where she was continually seizing, despite every medication the physicians had tried. The seizures were in turn damaging her brain, such that she was minimally responsive to stimuli and was … Continue reading The Ethical Use of our Therapeutic Connections with Patients’ Families
Fifteen Years as a PICU Nurse: When the Romance Fades
I hit my 15 year anniversary as a PICU nurse over the weekend. This was a few days after we said goodbye to some of our most beloved senior nurses in our unit, after their positions were eliminated at the hospital due to all the budgeting constraints from nationwide political pressures. I've found myself reflecting … Continue reading Fifteen Years as a PICU Nurse: When the Romance Fades
When Empathy and Desire to Help Others are not Enough to Fuel Nursing
In a recent harrowing shift and the subsequent “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck” day after, I found myself wondering what was really behind some feelings in me that we generally label “burnout.” Did I just not care enough about my patient and her family to consider all the hard work more … Continue reading When Empathy and Desire to Help Others are not Enough to Fuel Nursing
Walking Closely with Families: A Letter
A letter to my long time patient’s mom — You were trapped in the fishbowl of our ICU. You went from a numb stare to near catatonic with grief to terse and closed in to opening your door a crack to pouring your heart out, telling me stories, speaking of fears and hopes and uncertainties … Continue reading Walking Closely with Families: A Letter
The Year I Almost Walked Out on the Job
I would venture to say that two attributes we all have in common in the pediatric ICU (and nursing in general) are our affinity to be problem-solvers in tough situations, and to be comforters to the suffering. These attributes are what make us all so good at our jobs. They likely also exacerbate our distress … Continue reading The Year I Almost Walked Out on the Job
The Living Components of the Healthcare System
*This post is adapted from an article I wrote for our pediatric ICU's quarterly newsletter. Being a healthcare worker involves increasingly more than caring for the physical patients and their parents. It also involves giving attention to the system as a ‘patient’ of sorts, with its own temperament, ailings and needs. What’s curious is that … Continue reading The Living Components of the Healthcare System
I Don’t Know How You Do Your Job
After some particularly meaningful patient care experiences in the last few weeks, I've found my mind coming back to the comment we PICU staff often hear from the general public, "I don't know how you do your job." There are endless strings we could pull on, in unpacking that comment and our responses, but here … Continue reading I Don’t Know How You Do Your Job
A Different Kind of Expertise for a Different Kind of Healing
The baby came to us from another hospital with multi-layered complications since her premature birth. Her dad was absent, and her mom had two and a half strikes working against her in life. The other hospital had reached its limit in what they could do for the baby, so they sent the baby to us. … Continue reading A Different Kind of Expertise for a Different Kind of Healing
The Heart of Nursing 