By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
For months, many nurse leaders have told me that they see such dramatic changes in some of their staff as an outcome of the trauma that they have experienced. Just last week, a nurse manager told her colleagues that “we just got new Triage phones, and my staff this morning were talking about the ring tone and how it reminded them of the COVID call center in 2020. They indicated that they need to change the ring tone ASAP because it brings back bad feelings/emotions of that time as a trauma response.”
Yet, few nurses openly talk about their trauma. Scotti Peterson is an exception. She was recently interviewed on the podcast, The White Coat Investor, by the podcast host and emergency room physician, Dr. Jim Dahle, and talked about her own experience with COVID to an audience of 40,000+ regular listeners – mostly physicians. Scotti made a very compelling video to tell her story and that of other nurses titled Together We Fought – Together We Can Heal.
In her interview Scotti bravely told the following story:
I have been an ICU nurse for a little over seven years. My last year at the bedside was spent in COVID ICUs, over 2,500 hours as I’ve calculated. In that time, I only saw one of my patients make it home. At one point, I couldn’t figure out why I was still alive and they weren’t. I started to do writing as a way of surviving being in those rooms, which brings me to the video. The video is just me reading something I had written during that time. I never really expected to read it out loud, to be honest. I’ve always been a fairly quiet person, but when you’re alone in a room with a dying patient, day in and day out for over a year, things change.
The rhythmic movement of a mask you’re hoping keeps you safe, it also silences you. It silenced me to the point where for the first time in my life, I wanted to be heard. I have wrestled for months with what sharing this part of my experience with the public actually looks like. But at the end of the day, I remembered why I got into healthcare in the first place. That was to help people. For almost two years, despite all of my knowledge and experience, there was nothing I could do but watch people die. So maybe with this video, I can start to heal myself by helping others do the same.
I think that regardless of discipline, we all shared a lot of similar experiences. I think we also historically operated on a tough-it-out mentality. I used to say, ‘If I wasn’t one assigned to a hospital bed, I would be doing just fine,’ even on days when I absolutely wasn’t doing fine. I think we need to redefine what doing OK looks like and stop comparing ourselves with each other and understand we’re all probably fighting very similar battles at this point. We’re just fighting them differently. I think we spent so much time suffering in silence, but there is no way we’re going to heal silently. So, we need to start talking, not only to each other, but then also to people in positions of leadership. I think we reach them better if we’re all saying the same thing, because our echo will be much louder. In the bigger scheme of things, I think we need to start addressing why diagnosed and debilitating psychological injuries resulting from this pandemic or other trauma in the medical field is not recognized institutionally by L&I. It is not recognized as an injury.
I, personally, and I know others, have had to empty out their entire savings account to pay for leave and the medical treatment they needed. Many of us felt we were treated as expendable. For years, we were asked to do the impossible. On days we weren’t in hospitals, calls and texts for help we received every moment that we were outside of the doors, and our duty became our disease. I think that many of us spoke up more than once and absolutely nothing changed for well over a year. And at that point, for so many of us, it was too late. We are now suffering the consequences of those choices that weren’t ours to make. I think that if institutions start taking responsibility for the part they played in our injuries and help us get the treatment we need, it’s the first step of getting us back through those doors. I think national staffing shortages will continue to be a problem until we truly acknowledge how and why we got here in the first place.
I think not being OK looks different for every person. I think that you can’t offer yourself completely to your patients or to provide the best care unless you have found a way to care for yourself. I think that’s how good medical care happens is from people who themselves are healed first. That’s how we heal other people. So no, I don’t think it’s OK that we’re not OK. I have struggled, but I most recently have come to a point where I’m able to own my diagnosis and I am diagnosed with PTSD. My psychiatrist who diagnosed me a year and a half ago actually worked with service members prior to her practice now. It took me a really long time to understand carrying that diagnosis because I didn’t go to war and I didn’t feel like I suffered the same trauma that those individuals did. But at the same time, there are weeks where I can’t leave my apartment because I am scared. I have not been able to go into a grocery store for almost two years. I have lost most of my family and friends because it is really hard to make connections. I wake up many nights screaming or crying, because I so vividly remember my experiences from the last two years. I startle easily. I can’t hear a helicopter or siren without panicking quite a bit, because to me, for a year, those helicopters and sirens meant somebody else was coming to me to die. I’m not sure how to heal. I think we’re all figuring it out as we go.
I think there’s a lot of shame carrying that diagnosis and what it looks like, but I don’t think people think it looks like me. And so, if I have to be the first one to really get out there and say, ‘I have PTSD, this is what it looks like,’ maybe it’ll help others own their diagnoses as well.”
It took enormous courage for Scotti to be the first nurse to publicly speak out about her own battle with PTSD – hopefully she will not be the last.
© emergingrnleader.com 2022
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