Nurse Yourself: Recent Episodes
Nurse Yourself
Ever find yourself stuck, burnt out, not know where to turn to for help, not knowing what to do to help yourself? Healthcare providers put the needs of others first and rarely do we stop to think that we, ourselves, need to be taken care of. We need to take the initiative to do this as no one else can do it for us. Where we might struggle is finding the right supports and resources to tap into, or even where to begin!
Through the episodes, we'll have guests sharing their experiences and hopefully hearing some of these may help you out in your journey to nurse yourself!
A change in work environment can often times help with improving your mental health. Do not be afraid of a change. You deserve to be happy in your work environment and if your current one isn't working for you. Don't be afraid to venture out.
In this episode, Amy shares her experiences working in the ER and in an office environment. There are similarities in work stressors and issues but a swap in work environment has proved to be helpful in helping Amy find some balance with her work and personal life. It has also helped improve her mental health and job satisfaction.
If you need help or feel like you need to talk to someone, please reach out to your colleagues, friends, anyone. Even if it is just to address a small concern you have. It will help out tremendously. Delays in talking about concerns can have the potential to expand into bigger issues.
As these episodes are recorded locally, below is a link to some resources.
https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/mental-health
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please do leave us a message. It will be kept confidential.
Respiratory therapists (RT) are a group of health care professionals that are under rated and under appreciated. In my opinion, they shouldn't be. Given the COVID-19 situation, their roles have been brought out more into the spot light. I'm not sure why as SARs and H1N1 have also highlighted the importance of these highly specialized and trained health care professionals. This also brings about stressors that make the job just that much more challenging! Join us as we discuss the role of the RT and also explore some of the stressors that they experience.
We all dread this term: BURNOUT but it is very real and can manifest in different ways. Join Roman and I as we discuss the topic and offer our experiences and insights. Some areas in nursing, such as the ER and ICU, experience higher levels of burnout and higher levels of mental health conditions such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Repeated exposure to traumatic and stressful events can have a negative effect on your mental and physical well being. Learning to recognize signs of burnout is important to keep yourself and your coworkers from burning out. Check in with your coworkers, even if they seem happy. Most importantly, check in with yourself. Don't be afraid to reach out and ask for help. We all need a little help from time to time. It can happen to anyone and any unit/facility. We are great at caring for others, but we can't do our jobs properly if we do not take care of ourselves.
You can read more about the topic here: https://www.nursing.org/resources/nurse-burnout/
Some signs and symptoms (not a complete list) of burnout off nursing.org website:
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Physical exhaustion
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Emotional exhaustion
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Job related cynicism
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Low sense of personal accomplishment
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Calling in sick when not physically ill (mental health component)
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Irritability
Our first episode of Nurse Yourself! We're very excited for the launch.
Health care professionals and first responders always put the health and well being of others before our own. Many times, we forget that we also need to be cared for, not by just by others but by us. When we need help, who helps us? Who gives us the support that we need to nurse ourselves back to working order? In this episode we have a guest, Ellison, who is a Emergency Room trained Registered Nurse as well as a clinical instructor. Ellison and I (Nick) discuss our experiences and challenges with obtaining help for dealing with work stressors and traumatic events.
A quick note, we ran into an issue with echo on our audio during our recording.