How do I deal with the emotions?

Specialties Emergency

Published

Hi All!

I'm brand new to all nurses and have spent quite a long time perusing a lot of articles. It's so nice to be able to talk to other nurses who understand how you're feeling.

So I graduated nursing school in May of 2014 and landed my dream job! An ER position at the hospital I already worked at as a tech. Since then I've worked my butt off and ask questions and help out as much as I can. Any time there is a critical patient or trauma coming in I attempt to be in the room (unless I'm not caught up on my patients) so that I can learn and keep getting better in my chosen specialty of emergency nursing.

I don't know about anyone else's ER but at the one I work at its like people go crazy on Saturdays and it gets even worse on Sunday's. So this weekend for the first time in the past 9 months since I've became a nurse I was assigned to triage (which I actually enjoyed) and then on Sunday I got assigned to work on front rooms, which are the rooms at our hospital that house the critically ill patients. So I was already a little scared just knowing that my charge nurse was depending on me to pick up the slack and work well under pressure on those front rooms. My day was going great. I was knocking out my assignments. I was doing what I had always wanted to do. Take care of the critically ill in an ER.

Then the call came in over the radio. A trauma. GCS of 3. Motorcycle accident. Young male. I was caught up and my charge nurse asked me to set up the trauma room so I commenced to getting things ready. The ambulance finally rolls in. This young man is messed up. Trauma arrest on arrival. CPR begins and we get vitals back. I find out through local news that this patient passed away this morning.

A little history. 7 years ago my family gets a call from my uncle saying that my just turned 21 year old cousin has died in a motor cycle accident. I couldn't believe that his life had been snuffed out so quickly.

As soon as I pulled the back boarded patient onto that stretcher last night I saw my cousins face flash before my eyes, but being one of the nurses working to save his life I pushed the thought out of my head and pushed through the rest of my shift without breaking down. As soon as I got into my car last night I broke down. Sobbing and feeling angry at myself for not being able to do more. I know that's my Savior complex talking.

How do we as nurses deal with all of these emotions that rip out hearts apart?

Specializes in Med-Surg, Emergency, CEN.

One of the things that I hate the most about emergency services is the pressure to just brush it off and suck it up. We're supposed to be too tough to be bothered by every anything. Reality is that they're just really good at faking it.

I can guarantee that you have access to an EAP (employee assistance program) service through your work for free. They can talk to you over the phone and also schedule appointments to just talk it out confidentially.

Right now, go get a shower and get out of your house and do something active. Go clubbing, go bowling or work out at the gym. I don't like going to the movie theater because I'm not burning any energy and end up just sitting there thinking too much. Burn off some of that extra stress? It won't take it all away, but it helps to take the sharper edges off of ithe feelings so you can deal with it easier.

Specializes in Hospice/Infusion.

I am a new RN (6 months). I worked as an LPN in home health with pediatrics and adults for 7 years before I went back for RN. My first RN job was in the ER that I currently work in. I struggle every time a code happens with my emotions. I dont care if its an 89 year old person, its a life. Somebody loves that person. I am an emotional person to begin with and this always gets me, I always tear up and have to compose myself to carry on with the day...It seems like most of the other nurses just get over it without an issue...maybe it will get easier in time but I dont want to become calloused, but I feel it looks unprofessional to lose composure...:bored:

L♡vER

143 Posts

This is hard for me as well. I am not a sympathetic person, unfortunately I am empathetic. I feel the shock, the loss, the grief. It does get easier with time. You don't care less, you just don't carry it on the surface as much. It goes in little bottles to be expressed later.

I think that being able to associate the death of a family member to the patient lying in front of you makes you a better nurse. I cant explain why or how - but these situations seem to be easier to cope with over time. Don't fight your sensitivity- embrace it and process it.

After losing a family member to cancer, I took care of a patient that was similar in so many ways - and for a second it was my family member - her face looking up at me. Freaked me out. But it made me take care of her like she was my family. It was a good thing, because it also brought some healing to my own heart.

rnkatie85

7 Posts

I think, in my experience anyway, you have to have some type of barrier with your emotions, at least when all of it is actually going on. After its done, take a break, stop and breath. I had a very wise nurse tell me "I don't care if you smoke or not, go outside and "smoke"." Just go out side to get fresh air, cry if you need to, and try to pull yourself back together. I am not a very emotional person, in general, but there are many times I have stood next to a pt's family member, held their hand, and cried with them. That's ok! It lets them know that you did everything you could, and in some small measure you felt with and for them.

Talk to your coworkers after the event, some times it just helps to verbalize it to someone else.

I'm sorry you had a crappy day, but just try to remember that is why we do what we do. In the ER we see people at their worst, and try like hell to fix it, but the biggest problem is sometimes we don't "win", sometimes we can't beat the light.

Specializes in ER - trauma/cardiac/burns. IV start spec.

I had an 11 year old child rushed into our ER in the wee hours of one morning. He had been discharged from a children's hospital just north of us after having had heart surgery for a shunt placement. The shunt tore on his way home. The child was from India, beautiful black hair and warm brown skin. At first I thought I was looking at my then 7 year old son. The hair was the same color, my son spent every waking moment in the pool so he had the same coloring and both of them were about the same size. We went full bore but everything that could go wrong did including the x-ray tech mislabeling the x-ray film reversing left and right. We cracked his chest while pouring emergency blood supplies into him while manually massaging his heart. Every time I looked down I saw my son but I kept going. We did not win, we called the thoracic surgeon in but he got there only in time to close the chest, we made arrangements for the family in order to provide for their needs as members of the Hindu faith. When we, night shift, left that morning we all went to leave but gathered first at one car to debrief, discuss, cry and hug each other over the loss of this beautiful child. I went home and kept my 7 year old home from school so that I could hold onto him for most of the day. The other nurses and I spoke on the phone several times over the next week, and at work, about the experience. We thought we got past it then I hear from my mother that the family was good friends with one of her friends and the family was saying that we did not do everything we could because they were Hindu, I flipped my lid. It brought back all the emotions of that night but I did what we all do - pigeon hole it.

We, for the most part, do not get callous we just get better at stuffing the emotions into a little box until the shift is over. Our shift found that debriefing was the best thing for all of us. Sometimes it just takes talking about it with other nurses in order to put the emotions in order. I had several times where I cried with family when they lost someone in my ER, I cried when I helped them sign off on the DNR that released their loved one from the agony of life but none of them hit me the way that young Indian boy's death did. But you will get past it, learn from it but you do not need to get hard hearted. When something like that happens take the "smoke break" you will be surprised how much easier your life will be and your emotions can stay intact for your patients and yourself.

To quote part of one of my favorite poems;

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

[Desiderata, Max Erhmann]

annabanana2

196 Posts

To the poster above (I forgot to click "quote"): oh, that's so hard. You work and work and work and you stress and agonize and cry and in the end you find out that the patient's family doesn't believe you tried your hardest. That's such an awful feeling. I'm sorry that happened.

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