Healing Healthcare Through Healing Nurses

How healing our healthcare system requires healing the health system within each Nurse.

Healing Healthcare Through Healing Nurses

It has become abundantly clear that our health care system is not optimal. This was the case before COVID and has only become more clear since.

Nurses, you choose this career path because you deeply care and have a true desire to heal others. If you’re like myself or the Nurses I work with I bet you were in the nursing role before you knew it. Taking care of family, being the advice-giving friend, frequently lowering yourself on the priority list to lend a hand.

Even with that natural caregiving tendency, today, Nurses are choosing their well-being over their careers.  Resulting in record-high numbers of Nurses leaving the field. While many Nurses are leaving there are Nurses still showing up for their patients and doing the best they can with the tools they have.

But for how long? How do we retain the Nurses in the field and continue to grow the profession?

How much more can they take without having a seat at the decision table, without feeling the support of their workplace, and without equipping themselves with tools to fill their cup before pouring into their patients?

Below, I dive into how healing our Nurses is the path to healing our healthcare system.

1- Unlearning Self Sacrifice

As professional, educated adults I believe Nurses do not need more education, modules, or letters after our name. What would be most effective is unlearning.  Self-sacrifice has been instilled as early as Nursing School and only encouraged once we are in the field. IE: Nonexistent lunch breaks, holding our bladders until near bursting. We need to be supported in recognizing how limiting beliefs such as: “Self-sacrifice is required to serve others”  drive our behaviors and begin creating self-serving beliefs. “68% of the surveyed nurses place their patients' health, safety, and wellness before their own.”1

2- Self-Care Without Needing More Time

Self Care is quite the buzzword nowadays, but self-care is not a new term in the nursing world. ANA Code of Ethics explicitly states that self-care is a duty of the Nurse. The life of a Nurse is unique in many ways, but particularly in the schedule and the demands of each shift. Infusing self-care into what we already do in our day is creating a realistic approach for us to show up for ourselves consistently. IE: intentional breathing, choosing nutrient-dense foods. Caring for ourselves first enhances how we care for every life within the health system.

3- Selecting Relationships & Environments of Support

As mentioned above many Nurses were in the nursing role before they knew it; being the healer, the caretaker, and the giver to those closest to them. Then, we discover the world of Nursing and realize we can make a profession and a paycheck from that role. The problem arises when we are giving in every area of our lives, professionally and personally.

How have you taught people to treat you?

Do they expect you to be the available giver at all times?

Creating boundaries is a way to keep those we love in our world. I invite you to begin exploring what is the time and energy commitment you can give to others without feeling resentful or that you are pouring from empty. I invite you to utilize your assessment skills on yourself. By asking, “What is my ratio of giving to receiving today?”, this question can begin bringing some awareness to any imbalances. Of course, this leads to communicating our needs. Communicating with compassion is the key to effectiveness here.

Lastly, I will say we are changing every day and Nurses' schedules have a lot of variables. So allow yourself to have some non-negotiables while releasing the need to be perfect.

Blending this approach instills hope, creativity, and fulfillment in Nursing again as it is an extremely individualized approach to healing from the inside out. 

TIP: Rather than looking at how to heal the healthcare system, it is time to create conversations around healing the Nurses who have held up the healthcare system years before COVID came into our field.

References

1Self-care as an ethical obligation for nurses

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Bryanna Reilly

About Bryanna Reilly, BSN

Bryanna Reilly, RN, BSN, NC-BC. RN of 7 years and Board Certified Nurse Coach leading a movement of Nurses prioritizing themselves so they can continue healing the world. Creating containers for Nurses to feel safe, supported, and empowered through our breathwork & meditation community individualized 1:1 Coaching

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Specializes in Nursing challenges, Alzheimer's disease, Dementia.

Great article!  

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

.....Hmmmm.....

All well and good, but, for one thing, where's the safe staffing ratios? 

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Specializes in Coaching & Guided Meditation for Nurses.

@RN WRITER NC Thank you for this feedback! Id love to hear what spoke to you the most?

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Specializes in Coaching & Guided Meditation for Nurses.

@No Stars In My Eyes I appreciate that you brought this vital topic up! I completely agree and would love to hear your input on securing safe staffing ratios. The work I do focuses on the nurses creating an internal foundation of wellness that becomes unshakeable to anything external ?

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

This probably wouldn't be popular, change being difficult, but I think it wouldn't hurt to ditch the 'Primary Nursing' mode. The way primary nursing was introduced is NOT what primary nursing has turned into in the years since. It was a good idea that was totally bastardized by the 'Business mode' that overtook the medical field. Many more patient assignments were added to the primaries, who originally were only assigned 2-3 patients, which then became 4 patients, now 6 or 7 patients, for which the one nurse was responsible for everything required by the patients. Talk about Multi-Tasking!

I am old school, as in now retired. I began my career in 1971, at MGH in Boston. Back then Team Nursing was how staffing was figured out. There was a Charge Nurse, a Ward Secretary, and a Med Nurse, and four other personnel, usually aides and orderlies, so there were two persons on each of two halls. The patient assignment/care depended on the patient's conditions and needs during the shift you worked. Sometimes we would all pitch in together for care of difficult (for whatever reason) patients. The Med Nurse, in between med passes, would 'float' to help the aides/orderlies with their assignments. There was always someone who could help someone else out during the EIGHT hour shifts, so nobody was overloaded.

I worked in Team Nursing until the shift to primary nursing came into effect, and as I had primarily been a Med Nurse, I was suddenly without a role, because Primary Nurses gave all their own meds. I switched to Private Duty with the elderly and was also happy in that role.

There naturally were personality clashes, and those were more easily accommodated by certain personnel teaming up with another who worked in a similar way; ie if one person preferred working slowly, or quickly, they would team up together. Or sometimes if they preferred to work alone, they could do so and then join back together for patient assignments that required more help, ie could not be done by one person alone.

All I know is that I actually really and truly enjoyed the options provided by Team Nursing, rather than feeling stuck and behind in my work. 

So, many thought it was ideal when Primary Nursing became the way to go, but I wasn't one of them.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

"boundaries" and "self-care" do indeed seem to be the buzz words of millennials and gen z's these days.  You see it on Tik Tok and Instagram coming from all professions.  

I think this is a good development.  I read too many posts of nurses being so stressed out they cry every day on the way to work and can't sleep, etc.  

I like that you speak to being self-aware and taking self-inventory.  As cliche as it sounds we really need to take better care of ourselves.  When I find myself stress eating, being irritable and disorganized, I know it's time for a breather.  Being self aware that I'm stressed is the first step.  Doing something about it is next.  I can't always control what's going on with the ratios, management or patient/family demands but I have to prioritize myself by eating well, taking a time out, drinking water, etc.   My health and well being is as important as my patients.  

 

 

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Specializes in Coaching & Guided Meditation for Nurses.

@No Stars In My Eyes Thank you for your patience as I reply to you! I was born and raised about 45 minutes from Boston so I feel a bit more connected to you ? Your highlight of nursing turned business model rings SO true. A truth not many wants to admit. You opened my eyes to the world of Nursing that existed before I entered. It sounds ALOT more in favor of nurses and patients. Team Nursing sounds like the community and deeper levels of support that are so needed today. Your voice and lifelong experience are worth being shared!

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Specializes in Coaching & Guided Meditation for Nurses.

@Tweety Thank you for engaging and providing this feedback! I am celebrating your level of personal responsibility here! As cliche as it is, it truly all does begin with us. When we create an unshakeable inner foundation all the externals that you mentioned cant sway us from showing up for ourselves. YES. Your wellness is at the same level of importance as the patients you care for. 

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Specializes in Education.

Nurses are somehow seen as superheroes with no human emotions and traits, like being tired, hungry, and angry. We have to place those feeling in an out of body place, to ensure our patients are well cared for. As you clearly mentioned, we are cultured that way. 

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Specializes in Coaching & Guided Meditation for Nurses.

@Rita June Jarvis IsaacYes this has absolutely been the culture and narrative pushed thus far in our profession. It is conversations like this that begin the shifts! Thank you so much for engaging ? 

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