Discussion - Week 1 - CREATING YOUR PERSONAL NURSING LEGACY

Instructions:

 

Respond to your colleagues. Consider providing a supporting statement about each colleagues’ response based on at least one of this week’s Learning Resources. Or consider asking a clarifying question about each colleagues’ vision.

 

**minimum of three (3) scholarly references are required for each reply cited within the body of the reply & at the end**

Luther Armstrong

Challenge in Nursing

 

Main Question Post.  One of the growing challenges that I have seen in nursing is nursing burnout.  This challenge has always existed in nursing, but due to the recent Covid-19 pandemic, the effects of high workloads, increased nurse-to-patient ratios, low staffing, and extended shifts have taken its toll on many nurses I have worked with, including myself, to a degree.  As a travel psychiatric nurse, I have had the opportunity to work in 4 states and at eight different hospital systems since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.  I have witnessed the effects of deterioration of the nurses' health, being emotionally drained, a decline in work performance and a reduction in personal accomplishment are just a few of the results of nursing burnout, according to Maslach (Ball et al., 2019).  Maslach developed the Maslach Burnout inventory scale, one of the scale models used to measure burnout in individuals.  One of the most significant effects I have seen that may result from nursing burnout is the decline in patient care.  Working in caring for the psychiatric population, to begin with, is a very trying and stressful task.  When coupled with the factors mentioned above of increased nurse-to-patient ratios and low staffing, to mention a couple, it is no wonder I have witnessed low employee morale in many places and, most of all, patients not being cared for as they should and even in some respects patients being mistreated. 

Two solutions to alleviate the effects and results of nursing burnout are better nurse-to-patient ratios and more nurses. These two solutions go together because to get better nurse-patient ratios, it will take educating, training, and hiring more people into the nursing field.  The process of becoming a nurse, as we all know, takes some years but getting better nurse-to-patient ratios can start now. In that same spirit and with the same tenacity that Florence Nightingale took when she challenged politicians to provide better equipment that would keep staff and soldiers safe and promote the cleanliness of hospitals for better patient outcomes (Natasha McEnroe, 2020), nurse leaders of today must challenge politicians to mandate better nurse-to-patient ratios across the country and give the necessary concessions, such as tax breaks, and financial grants to those that are willing to take the educational path to become a nurse in their respective states.  These are certainly two viable solutions that can alleviate the growing challenges we are facing of nursing burnout and, most of all, keep the patients safe, give them the care that they come to us for, and promote that the physically and mentally healthy nurse can continue to live up to the oath that we proudly took on that graduation day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

Ball, J., Reinius, M., & Griffiths, P. (2019). Burnout in nursing: a theoretical review.  Human Resources for H Ball, J., Reinius, M., & Grifiths, P. (2019). Burnout in nursing: A theoretical review.  Human Resources for Health, (18). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-020-00469-9.

McEnroe, N. (2020). Celebrating Florence Nightingale's bicentenary,.  The Lancet,  395(10235), 1475-1478. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30992-2.