Grief on the Frontlines
My newest "What I'm Reading" column for the American Jrnl. of Nursing
A brief note on the mid-term elections
I got this newsletter ready before the polls had closed, so I’m not commenting on the election results. Here in Pennsylvania we won’t get immediate results anyway because mail-in votes can’t be counted until voting is done. But regardless of the outcome, please know that our vibrant and dynamic country will endure. This lurch toward right-wing extremism will not outlast justice, kindness, and hope for a better future for all.
The Trauma and Grief of Frontline Clinicians
[I copied in part of my new column for The American Journal of Nursing. Click on the link below to read the whole piece. You can return here to comment. Apologies for the awkwardness—this topic is important so I’m highlighting it, while respecting copyright.]
It's hard to imagine a more timely book on the topic of health care than Rachel Jones's Grief on the Front Lines: Reckoning with Trauma, Grief, and Humanity in Modern Medicine (North Atlantic Books, 2022). Jones, a journalist, dug deep into the trauma experienced by health care workers, in particular physicians and nurses, and in doing so discovered an abundance of frustration, misery, and extreme professional disaffection. She offers no easy solutions to the problems clinicians face. But the book's discussion of how poorly the health care system attends to the emotional needs of staff will likely leave nurses feeling validated and less alone.
Grief on the Front Lines details how damaging both nursing and medical school education can be. Nurses and physicians start their clinical careers having been acculturated into work environments where they're often overworked, judged unfairly, and held to impossible standards—all while being expected to cope with potentially traumatizing situations, such as gruesome injuries and deaths, and provide support to stricken families.
Such acculturation encourages clinicians to deny their own emotional vulnerability and spurn the very idea of mental health care. As a result, when they feel their ability to cope failing, they have very little idea of how to help themselves. Some health care workers disconnect from patients or even depersonalize them in an attempt to protect themselves from being traumatized by what they experience on the job. But according to the resilience experts whose observations pepper the book, disconnection can factor into burnout. Indeed, one researcher found that feeling connected to others was the only common driver of clinicians' sense of fulfillment.
Read the rest of the article here: American Journal of Nursing
We’ve been enjoying some unusually warm weather here in Pittsburgh, which makes me happy. Winter has its joys, too, but it’s the surprise of sunlight and warmth in November that I like.
Hugs to all,
Theresa
This treatment sounds so much like what social workers deal with. I worked for the State for a long time. One of my co-workers, who was troubled died while she was an employee. Due to her personality, she didn't have many friends and the co-workers who tried to reach out to her were stymied by the superiors who wouldn't give out her phone number. After she died we all felt so guilty . Our superiors had a group meeting for us to air our feelings. Many things came out, not all related to her, and the meeting was a disaster. Someone asked why the higher -ups hadn't brought in counselors to help us deal with our feelings. They were told that we were professionals and we could handle our feelings without outside help.
On the fate of justice, kindness, and hope in our nation...we can only hope. When I look at the history of empires, it makes me glad I am old.
As for the book on grief, I must get and read it. I have treatment-related medical trauma that was caused when I was merely 5 years old. As a method of trying to cope with it in my old age, in the last decade+ I've been reading a lot of medical autobiographies written by physicians and nurses (like you!). Despite my overwhelming fear and mistrust of doctors (in particular), I have reached the same conclusions that you report reading in this book. The system of educating physicians is brutal, and the working conditions for doctors and nurses are insane. More than once I've found myself feeling sorry for y'all. Providing health care on the front lines is both a noble calling and a brutal way of living.
It may interest you to know that within the soul-sucking swamp of my medical PTSD terror and mistrust when I had cancer, there were two people who had a huge positive impact on me. One was a nurse who took the time late one night (while I was hospitalized with neutropenia) to try to help me get through a massive, massive PTSD-induced panic attack brought on by the careless words of a resident. The other was a medical student who cried with me. I can only hope that amidst the grueling conditions of your training and work, doctors and nurses can keep hanging onto the knowledge that sometimes their work--and even their mere presence--can have a powerfully positive effect.