In my career as an ICU nurse it didn’t take long for me to experience nursing burnout.
It can be called many things other than nursing burnout but despite what it’s called it is a real thing that many new nurses will have to deal with.
For me I realized I was no longer able to separate from the death and despair I saw on a daily basis at work from my time away from work. Ultimately I found myself feeling depressed and dreading going into work each time.
This is a large reason that about 20 – 30% of new nurses leave the field before their first year of being a nurse.
The big takeaway from this episode is to know that you aren’t alone in your compassion fatigue and you can only do what you can do. Understand that some things are out of your control and you can only do so much.
Once I realized that was the case it helped me push through that feeling of nursing burnout and go on to have a successful career as a nurse.
