the emotional aspect of ICU- just venting?

[emilyewrn]

I'm new nurse in the SICU (I came from a surgical tele unit with about a year of experience) and I'm almost finished with my orientation, so I've been on the unit for about 3 months. Being that our hospital does not have a trauma ICU (we are trauma I), we get all the traumas.

Since it's summer, we've gotten plenty of motorcycle accidents and other traumas. I've had 3 patients declared clinically brain dead since I started (they were all "bad head" pts) and recently cared for another patient with elevated ICP's that refused to budge even after intervention possible. This patient made me particularly emotional. I'd cared for the patient for 3- 12 hour shifts, the last of which ended with the neurosurg resident telling me he thought the patient was progressing to brain death after I called him telling him I was concerned about the patient's change in condition (I don't want to post too much about the patient's case specifically on here).

I absolutely love SICU so far and am learning a lot, but after that 12 hour shift I went home feeling disappointed, defeated, and even a little bit angry. I think I feel this way because we had spent so much time trying to save the patient, and I realized we weren't going to be able to. I felt more frustrated than anything else. I guess I'm just having trouble dealing with it because it's something I'm not used to, not sure how the experienced ICU nurses handle it (?). I didn't feel quite as emotional with the last 3 "bad head" patients I had, so I'm not sure if it was this patient in particular or just pent up emotions surfacing after this kind of broke the straw. I'm just having a little trouble adjusting to the emotional aspect of being an ICU nurse. You don't have to comment, just wanted to vent.

[ReOxyS]

I can't offer any advice or solace, but I wanted to thank you for sharing your experience. I'm a student, don't really know what specialty I would want to go for, so I like to read about other people's impressions of what they're doing/what hurdles they're having to overcome. I figure ICU must be pretty difficult to adjust to, given that the patients on your unit are likely already critical. I hope you can adjust soon.

[emilyewrn]

I can't offer any advice or solace, but I wanted to thank you for sharing your experience. I'm a student, don't really know what specialty I would want to go for, so I like to read about other people's impressions of what they're doing/what hurdles they're having to overcome. I figure ICU must be pretty difficult to adjust to, given that the patients on your unit are likely already critical. I hope you can adjust soon.

Thank you for the support. I'm sure it'll just take some time/getting used to. Good luck in school! Nursing isn't easy, but it's an amazing job.

[Biffbradford]

You never get used to it. It's a war zone of sorts and you either learn to deal with it in various ways, or you move on to something else.

[dexm]

I think that some patients are just going to affect you differently than others. Even if you've taken care of 1000 patients who were declared brain dead after an MCC and handled it like a champ, for whatever reason that 1001st patient might be the one sending you home in tears. Some patients and their situations just strike you a little differently, and I think that's completely normal. I also think it's normal not to feel super emotional either.

Like the pp said, you never get used to it. You've probably gone from watching zero people die each year to lord knows how many. That's pretty weird if you think about it. Not many professions experience death on a daily basis like ICU nurses do. It's a reality we have to deal with and accept when we're walking in to work each day - a reality that obviously isn't the norm. So you probably won't get used to it, but I think it becomes a new kind of 'normal' you come to accept.

[emilyewrn]

Thanks for the comments. Good to know that you never get used to it. You're probably right in saying some patients affect us differently than others, since I've been in a few similar situations and felt very little emotion. And yes it is definitely different to be in an environment where I am often dealing with death. Thank you for letting me vent!

[tokmom, BSN, RN]

I have never worked ICU (for personal reasons) but dealing with death is a nursing thing in general. Some days we can have 1-2 deaths on a med/surg unit and some of those deaths are young people with end-stage whatever.. It's sad to see lives cut dramatically short no matter where one works.

Some of my dying patients have stuck with me through the years to the point of even remembering their names. I had three young woman in their late twenties, early thirties, with young children, die of cancer within an 8 week time frame. I was in the room when one pt was informed there was nothing else they could do for her, and I held her hand as she told her children good bye.

Death sucks and traumatic deaths are worse, IMO. What you need to do is take care of yourself. Get a massage, take a long walk. Journal your thoughts. Do something that fills your glass because you really need to take care of yourself (((hugs))).