Reading an article about nursing burnout this morning in the online nurse’s forum at allnurses.com prompted me to post this reply:

“Don’t rock the boat…is a common thread for many nurses and nursing work environments. Management says they want to have input to make the nursing environment better (what they really want is more productivity for less paid hours on the clock.) And nurses don’t want other fellow nurses stirring up the dust too much by sharing their frustrations. Just get through the day, do your job (perfectly) and don’t tell me about what you think needs to be fixed or changed.

I have been researching burnout for years, both from an experiential perspective (40 years as a nurse) and from a holistic “healing” perspective. To realize the complicity between both nurses and the job situations themselves, is a multi-faceted discussion. How do you talk about burnout with anyone–other nurses, family or friends–without it becoming just a gripe session or getting suggestions like this article’s title says to “just relax”?

There is a fundamental core issue that relates to nursing burnout and to our so-called health care crises….that is that we are not becoming healthier or “getting well.” We need to send ourselves, as nurses, an authentic Get Well card. We can change the nursing profession. And I know for sure that there are nurses who realize this, envision this and long for it to happen.

This author is one of these nurses. She offers her insights and tells us that we can change our mindset about how we approach our difficult and sorely needed jobs as nurses. She has discovered a process for transforming nursing burnout, born out her own personal experiences as a nurse who cares.

I have looked at her offerings and found that we share common views on how to help nurses with burnout. It gives me hope to find such a kindred spirit. And I know there are many more of us out there, and I hope some of you will post your perspectives here. Burnout is becoming a cliche, and we are supposed to couch it in different words like compassion fatigue, almost in a kind of denial that it is still happening. Nurses are not supposed to burn out, they have been trained to be professionals who get the job done. And now, with the economic times so unnerving for many people, nurses are feeling even more stuck in jobs that they fear they cannot leave or “rock the boat” in any way.

If you are a burned out nurse reading this, or know of one, or wonder if you will become one…..I invite you to explore it with me in a mountain retreat in California. You can see the details at thedeeperwell.wordpress.com and yes, this could seem like an advertisement, but it truly is a helping, caring hand reaching out. (The retreat does offer 24 CE’s for California and Nevada nurses.) It is a documented fact that burned out, stressed out and overwhelmed nurses contribute to a less than helpful, and sometimes out right dangerous, health care environment for patients. Nursing burnout affects us all, whether we are immersed in it or not.

We need to welcome all the voices talking about it.”

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Read more about burnout from Lori Daniell, author of the article, at her Nurse Your Spirit website.