Nurses and midwives

[cloudni9e]

How do you deal with the stress or watching horrible thing happen? Can you block it out? Has it affected your life? I can't think of more gut wrenching jobs so I thought I'd ask.

things not thing sorry didn't see that.

I think it really depends on your personality type, I have been in healthcare for 30 years and have seen lots of sad things happen.
I am not a natural worrier and can leave most things at work, certain patients though you never forget.

Someone asked me about this today and as I was saying to her I can block it out. I can feel really sad at the time and show empathy, etc towards the family but when I finish my shift I am putting it to the back of my mind. That's not to say I forget about them, there are women and families who stick in my mind from over ten years ago and I wonder how they're doing now. But I think you do have to develop an emotional resilience.

I find I detach to a certain extent, while I'm there I'm busy and get on with it. Particularly bad days I might go home and have a cry but then it's time to move on. Certain patients I will never forget but I can't take it all to heart or id never get up in the mornings

I've thought about midwifery from time to time because I think how amazing it would be to help women through pregnancy and be there when new lives enter the world! My midwife really wanted me to be a midwife! But then I know I couldn't deal with it when things would go wrong and I know I couldn't hold it together and I'm also very squeamish so I know it's not for me but then I wonder how people do. Nurses and midwives are often super empathetic so I wonder how they deal with it. Thanks for the responses it's really interesting.

Can you always move on? I think I read an article written by one nurse who said at first it was really really hard but it got easier as time went on or have you always found it easy not to take it all on?
General question sorry drip feeding

Is therapy encouraged or offered at all?

I think it gets easier. Ive never cried in front of a patient or family as it wouldn't be professional. But I've cried in the staffroom before. But not for ages.

I think it's all the little times when you personally have made the difference that keep you going.Mostly it is team work but knowing it was you just reminds you of why you do it and why you are there.
The hard bit is not having enough time to give everyone what they need.You can hear it on wards with the patients calling.Really they need someone to sit and talk to them but you have another 7 patients,admitting anddischarging,medication,communicating to relatives and a few trees worth of paperwork that often needs duplicating onto a computer.
And you learn how to filter most of it,process it.But it can be overwhelming at times.
It does effect people,this is why the drop out rate for student nurses is so high,why many of those who complete the course don't take up nursing,there is another drop out at 5years,having children and inflexible nursing shift mean there are more drop outs and it is not a physically easy job as you get older so there is an injury drop out.
And the pay isn't great,there are fewer higher grades available and more junior grade staff taking on roles that normally higher grades would take on.
Numbers are dropping so less taking on more and we are just about at breaking point.

Yeah it's terrible the way medical workers are treated especially nurses and midwives being overworked and under valued. But we value you! I forgot to put a shoutout to all of you awesome people as well. Thank you for what you do it's appreciated by many 💓

As a Mental Health Nurse I realised very quickly that it's your team that keeps you going. The support and feedback from colleagues is so important.

As a nurse we are constantly being told by inspectors, by the Trust and by senior managers that we are performing badly, or haven't ticked enough boxes. Colleagues, including local managers and patients keep you informed and motivated, they make you want to come back.

Strong resilience and good intuition are key skills to have in nursing to survive.

I've been a nurse / midwife for 30 years. Yes you do see some awful things happen and you have to be professional about it - it's not "all about you" , it's about the person you're caring for. I've never understood nurses who cry about what has happened. No matter how horrible it is, you're there to be strong and to help the person through the experience, not to fall to pieces and cry on their shoulder.

I'd say that being squeamish would be a red flag for anyone going into nursing. You see some pretty graphic things on a daily basis, and you have to stay calm and collected .

The job is never going to be very well paid, you work really long hours with no thanks and the work load gets worse all the time. You have to be very resilient to keep it up.

I've been a nurse for over 20 years. I would say you do have to 'leave it at work' or it would consume you. That said, there are patients that I will never forget. I've had a lot of tears (mine and my colleagues) in the sluice!
However, it has changed me. I worked in ICU for many years and I started to worry. A lot of patients had been going about their daily business and ended up in there with a life changing injury or dying from something that had happened randomly. It started making me anxious that similar could happen to me. So in a way it has affected my mental health.

Something which is central to nursing now is reflective practice.

Key to this is reflecting on events long enough to learn from what happened (good and bad) but not so long that it starts to impact your own mental health.

Easier said than done but the best nurses have found just the right balance !

You have to learn to detach or it would break you. I do feel for patients and families, you can’t do the job without empathy but they look to you to be professional. It’s really helpful to have colleagues you can debrief with, I had a much more experienced friend who was a nurse that I could talk to about my issues. I deliberately avoid the more challenging side of nursing - like health visiting - because I know I couldn’t cope with the safeguarding aspects of it.

Bump!

I have been in community nursing (health visiting) for 5 years now. I deal with child protection daily and it is completely heart wrenching at times. I have a strong team which I think is a fundamental part of getting through the day. We chat/cry/reflect and it lets us offload. I have also learned to leave it at work. In the early days, I would go home and cry to DH and found I couldn't separate my work/home life.

I have cried once with a patient family. Other than that occasion I am strictly professional. I would say it comes down to personality. I have had previous colleagues that left as the emotional burden was too much (as well as the untenable workload).

Honestly, after you see enough horrible things you just go a bit hard on the inside.

I absolutely can turn off my emotions when required, like flicking a switch in my head. Often really awful things don't hit me until after the end of the shift.

Midwife here. Often have had to deal with awful situations. The way I see it is that it's a sad thing but it isn't my sad thing. The main things I'm affected by are when I've been part of treatment that has been critical, for instance. But the worst thing I've been affected by was being involved in a resus in my non midwifery job.

Midwife here too and I'd have to agree with everyone else. You get pretty good at "switching off" because you have a job to be doing and don't have time to get too upset. However, I do find that the level I'm affected by things depends on how I am in my every day life. If I'm generally struggling a bit anyway, then cases at work affect me a lot more. The important thing is having a supportive team that look after each other - sometimes a hug and someone making a cup of tea just makes the world of difference