Reference no: EM133670270

Assignment:

Identify at least 3 stressors related to this work environment.

Explain three best practices for the work setting chosen to promote personal and professional wellness.

Justify the response by providing evidence-based research from current literature for the inclusion of this sort of environmental practice. Be specific.

Case Scenario:

Barbara Bennett Emergency Room Nurse I am an ER nurse for the last three and a half years. Our typical duties is you know to process a patient through triage first, and then they come into a room, we'll start an IV or whatever if they need to be done, and any orders that the doctor give, and- blood work, that kind of thing. Take care of the family, take care of the patient, any aspect that they need. The most rewarding part of the job is not always saving the patient, but helping the family get through it, I think that- that's the biggest part that I love about my- is the whole family aspect of it. They come into the ER, they're stressed, they've got, you know, they're scared, they don't know the process and helping the family through the process of the ER is probably the most rewarding part. Uhm.. some of them can be very stressed and they tend to take it out on the nurses and they don't always mean to, and half the time they apologize later but it is stressful.

Couple weeks ago I had a patient uhm.. whose family member had a GI bleed and she was actively vomiting and- vomiting blood and he just wouldn't stop being in front of us, he was almost in the way and- and cussing at us, screaming at us. We had to remove him from the room and once she passed away, about a half an hour later he did apologize to everybody. He realized that everybody was in there working trying to help her but it was- you know, he just added to a stressful situation, didn't realize it. Our average at our ER is about 125 patients a day, after a holiday it's even more uhm.. the other day we had a 193 patients that we process through the ER in 24 hours.

You got trauma patients coming in, you're pulling people out of rooms, and you never really- some days you don't get your head wrapped around what's going on and just- it's just the volume of it. So many people go to the ER for everything these days that you just can't always help everybody On days that it's high volumes I feel like some days I walk away and I didn't do my job and like I felt like I didn't make an impact because I didn't get to really take care of that patient.

You know, it was- I felt like I was just kind of processing them in, processing them out without, you know, the care aspect isn't always there and it can't always be there when you have the volumes like that. There is that realization that you can't help everybody and if you walk away thinking that you can help everybody you're not going to last long in the ER because not everybody can be helped by the ER. I think because I have family and good backgrounds so I have good support at home so that stuff doesn't stay with me and it doesn't affect me. I'm able to walk away and go home from my job and leave my job at home. Not to say that I don't think about it and, you know, when we have bad days, but you know my couch is my friend when I go home There are some days that some things like, you know, the- you have- like I've had family members die of certain things, so you know when you have that patient come in, your heart goes out to them a little bit more.

So like my cancer patients kind of are- go to my heart because I've had two family members die of cancer so I tend to give them a little bit more attention so I would say that- from that aspect that does affect me. The nurses that I've worked with at both hospitals are really good. They all work well, when you become nursing, you become friends and you guys end up supporting each other, so you go through the same things together. So it ends up being a good support group. If there's a bad trauma we can- the support systems come in and they kind of have a debriefing. They'll bring in like the minister or, you know, they have a safety, you know, liaison that'll come help walk us through, make sure that we knew we did everything. The director of our ER's really good about that, and when we have bad days, they know we have bad days, and they try to support us.

References:

Quitangon, G. & Evces, M. (2015). Vicarious trauma and disaster mental health: Understanding risks and promoting resilience. New York: Routlege

Steele, W. (2019). Reducing compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout. Taylor & Francis.

Chapter , "Tough Conversations, Well-being, Engagement"

Skovholt, T. M., & Trotter-Mathison, M. (2016). The resilient practitioner (3rd ed.). Taylor & Francis.

Beehr, T., Bowling, N. & Bennett, M. (2010). Occupational stress and failures of social support: When helping hurts Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 15(1), 45-59.

Fahy, A. (2007). The unbearable fatigue of compassion: Notes from a substance abuse counselor who dreams of working at Starbuck's. Clinical Social Work Journal, 35(3), 199-205.

Rubino, C., Luksyte, A., Perry, S., & Volpone, S. (2009). How do stressors lead to burnout? The mediating role of motivation. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 14(3), 289-304.