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Showing posts from April, 2020

Commentary: Compassion Fatigue and COVID-19-The Chronic Condition of the Helper

It’s April 12,2020. You are not reading an Orwellian novel. The first case of COVID-19 in the United States was reported on 1/22/2020 in Washington State. Eighty days later, the Untied States has reported 555,313 cases, and 22,020 deaths. Who was there from the beginning? Nurses. Nurses care but at what expense? COVID-19 sheds the spotlight on a well-known chronic condition in nursing- compassion fatigue. Since the very beginning of this pandemic, nurses’ lives have been a constant cycle of caring for critically ill patients; fighting to save each one; watching patients decompensate; mourning; clocking out after a 12-16hr shifts and returning to the bedside the next day. This continuous loop is unsustainable. Nurses are suffering from compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue is a state of exhaustion related to the constant exposure to trauma and/or illness. Nurses not only experience increased physical and mental exhaustion, but reductions in work satisfac