cried in front of my boss, is it too bad?

Nurses Relations

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I know showing emotions at work is a bad thing. I just can't help crying when the patient's wife told her dying husband "I'm taking you home, my love". Is it bad? I don't want her to think that I'm weak and not composed and I'll let emotions affect my work".

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not bad. youre human and youre a nurse dealing with literal life and death situations. Just today I had a nurse cry to me talking about a patient deciding on end of life decisions. It's normal. :)

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Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

Did you shed some tears of empathy and compassion, or have a total emotional meltdown that stopped you being able to continue providing care and doing your duties the rest of the shift?

Being able to feel with patients is not the same as being weak. Being professional simply means not letting the emotions rule you.

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If I were a family member or patient, I'd actually probably feel comforted by the nurse shedding some tears. It would show me they cared, and help me feel not so alone. I've been the patient and the family member more times than I can honestly count. As far as your boss, I agree with above poster as to if it affected your work. Then yeah, that could look bad to your boss. Otherwise, if you shed some tears and went on about your work, then that's just normal. We're not robots taking care of people.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

My organization not only recognizes the emotional aspect of clinical care, but provides structures & resources for clinicians who are experiencing distress. We have pro-active processes in place such as critical incident debriefing for situations in which staff are likely to experience problems - e.g., after emergency resuscitation or death of long-term patients. I guess that's one of the very clear benefits of working for a faith-based organization.

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