After nearly two years of the pandemic, nurses starting their career are acknowledging a problem that many longtime nurses are dealing with—burnout.
A group of soon-to-be graduates from Butler County Community College’s nursing program recently made presentations of issues confronting healthcare. One of the main areas of concern they say is nurse burnout.
Carrie Dingel, Krista Hartle, Brooke Peterson and Lauren Wade are among BC3 main campus Nursing, R.N., students who attend clinical experiences at regional health care facilities, where nurses can be affected by the succession of COVID-19 patients and by increased hours to compensate for colleagues who have left the field.
“Burnout is crazy high,” Hartle, who is from Butler said. “There’s already a shortage on staff. You’re picking up extra shifts. You’re trying to take care of critically ill patients. You’re running on zero energy.”
“It’s something they are seeing in the present,” said Dr. Patty Annear, dean of BC3’s Shaffer School of Nursing and Allied Health. “It’s a problem.”
“Not only do we have sicker patients, we have more patients coming in,” said Heather Darrington, a BC3 faculty member who also works as a critical care nurse at a regional hospital. “We have more nurses leaving the bedside because of the burnout. And that creates even more burnout.”
If nurses do not take care of themselves, Annear said, “They are not going to be able to care for others.”
However, the group of students say that having on-site therapists or therapy rooms could be a benefit to exhausted nurses.
Their main message was that it’s important to take care of those who are taking care of others.
