Nurse Burnout Essay

I thought about nursing burnout through watching the video by speaker Madelyn Blaire. Burnout is categorized as physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. Burnout can lead to dulled emotions and detachment. I wonder why nurses are burning out.

What was once thought of as a profession driven by compassion and the desire to help those in need has now become filled with weary burnt out nurses who have lost sight of their purpose. Stress has caused them to distance themselves from the principles nursing is built upon. Our health care system needs to be revamped to improve the quality of care being administered. Nurses can be proactive and take steps to avoid burning out but, our health care administrators have to take matters into their hands because they have the capacity to initiate change. They must realize the gravity of the situation and take an offensive position to make a stand against the crisis of nursing

There were specific situations that led to the cause of Julie Thao's actions of medication error and the death of Jasmine. The situation could have completely been avoided had Julie followed the code of ethics and avoided shorts to provide proper care for the patient. The state claimed that Thao's mistake was caused by actions, omissions and unapproved shortcuts, however, there were other factors that played a role in her carelessness as well. While failure to comply with procedure has been a factor in the medication administration error, other factors contributed as well. For example, failure to properly use the information system, or to ignore alerts or warnings have also resulted in preventable errors (Nelson, Evan, & Gardener, 2005).

It in fact just caused more problems. It is thought that nurse who made a mistake could actually be more careful in the future than one who

Application of Kanter’s Theory in Reducing Work Stress and Burnout in Nursing Due to the rapidly changing health care system and the reduction of resources, nursing demands are greater which has led to work related stress and ultimately nursing burnout. (Hayes, Douglas, & Bonner, 2014; Kushner & Ruffin, 2015; Laschinger et al., 2003; Slatten, Carson & Carson, 2011). Nursing burnout impacts both the performance and profitability of a healthcare organization in addition to adversely affecting patient outcomes (Jennings, 2008; Kushner & Ruffin, 2015; Laschinger et al., 2003). Ordinarily for nurses, making a difference by caring for and helping others is gratifying (Hayes et al., 2014; Slatten et al., 2011); however nurses have had to endeavor several unfavorable circumstances such as long work hours, compassion fatigue, physical labor, human adversities, staffing shortages, lack of breaks, advanced technology, and poor interpersonal work relationships (Hayes et al., 2014; Jennings, 2008; Slatten et al., 2011); thus the effects of sustained exposure to increasingly demanding professional work conditions brought on by doubt and concern results in decreased nursing satisfaction, lack of perceived support, psychological difficulties such as demoralization,

Nursing burn out is at an all-time high. Hospitals are adding more and more to what nurses do on a daily basis and nurse to patient ratio is forever changing. In Jill’s situation, she was a very happy nurse placed in a horrible situation. ICU nursing is not the easiest, and Jill definitely got the bad deal of the deck with she started working on the ICU floor. Nurses and physicians were overwhelmed and burn out, setting a very stressful atmosphere for everyone including Jill, making it hard for Jill to be happy in the decision she made to become and ICU nurse.

They each are liable for nursing negligence in a civil court. Because they breached the standards of care by failing to render the degree of care, skill, and judgment exercised by a prudent nurse under the same circumstances (Westrick, 2014). Jeffery Chambers, RN had an established duty to care for Yolanda Pinnelas and breached the standard of care as he was the primary nurse assigned to the patient. Diana Smith, RN mentioned to Jeffery Chambers, RN that Yolanda Pinnelas IV infusion was beeping. However, he did not take the time to check the nature of the problem.

Negligence is when a nurse who is fully capable of caring does not care in the way a reasonably prudent nurse would, and as a result the

One ethical obligation nurses are required to fulfil during their shift is to ensure no harm is done to their patient. Due to nursing shortages and too many patient’s, nurses are finding this hard to do. Ethics help nurses make the right decisions with the guidance of their morals, but due to shortages and overworked nurses they tend to feel dissatisfied with their jobs. This results from unsafe work environments, lack of time for communication and quality care of patients. “Understaffing and overtime hours have been associated with increases in patient mortality, hospital-acquired infections, shock, and bloodstream infections” (Kane et al., 2007b).

The codes and principles that have been put in place such as The Nursing Code of Ethics, are there to ensure that patients are subject to and receive the best possible care that Health Professionals can give them. If a health professional is to disregard or ignore the codes and principals, then the wellbeing of the patient is being jeopardized and the health professional has fulfilled their duty of care, as shown in ‘Assignment 3 Scenario 3’ when Sally administers the incorrect medication to Mrs Thompson after Mrs Thompson tried to tell Sally the medication was incorrect yet Sally ignored her, not showing good Patient-Centred Care. All though there were no significant negative effects with the mistake, the scenario demonstrates the incorrect procedures and low level of competency demonstrated by the nurse as she chose the “‘least said soonest mended’” and did not fill out an incident report

An important point here is that after the confrontation Dr. Frederick admitted his mistake and for future decisions respect patients and verify that the informed consent is completed and the patient understands the risks they are exposed to, along with that the patient is in his right to change his mind, and if necessary notify it and complete a new consent for the benefit of all, but especially for a patient who is ultimately the one that suffers the physical and emotional damage and for the institution to avoid legal claims. As nurses is our responsibility to monitor the safety of the patient and the informed consent is an aspect which monitors the Joint Commission and a legal claim is the first aspect to be evaluated. Not only procedures

On the other hand, in “Supervision of Nurse Anesthetist Sought” Lovern, the author, discusses the decision of the government’s federal law that allows certified nurse anesthetist to practice without the supervision of a physician. He wrote that the president of the American Society of Anesthesiologist stated “Outrageous action” when commenting on the issue. A big contender to why some physicians and anesthesiologist do not want to allow the nurse anesthetist to practice without supervision is that if their patient is to become injured, the responsibility and liability falls directly onto the physicians and anesthesiologist. In some instances, the nurses that administered the drugs were not even sued, but the surgeon or anesthesiologist over the CRNA were taken to court. So, where do we draw the line?

Burnout is classified viewed in three phases. The first phase of burnout is the arousal phase. The nurse shows anxiety, insomnia, forgetfulness, inability to concentrate, feelings of beings overwhelmed, frustration, sadness, and new physical symptoms, such as headaches and stomach problems. If the nurse does not recognize that these symptoms require intervention, the second phase is energy conservation. In this phase, the nurse starts to call in sick to work; o she may be chronically late getting to duty. Deadlines are not met, a cynical or resentful attitude develops, a persistent sense of fatigue pervades both are the nurse’s personal and professional’s life.

According to the data from Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau of Health Professions (2013), there were 2.8 million Registered Nurses (RNs) and 690,000 Licensed Practice Nurses (LPNs) were working in the period from 2008-2010, in the United States. The nursing workforce grew substantially in 2000s, by RNs growing by more than 24.1 percent and LPNs by more than 15.5 percent. The population of nurses are facing multiple challenges at the workplace, such as shortage in staffing, nurse turnover, increased workload, long working hours, poor relationship with co-workers, lack of support from the management, and eventually these challenges create high level of nurse burnout. It is estimated that job- related burnout measure using the Maslach Burnout inventory – Human Services Survey, 36.5 % of nurses having high level of burnout. The researchers at the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Nursing, estimates if nurse burnout reduces by 10 %, could prevent thousands of hospital acquired infections and reduce the health care expense (Potera, 2012).

These mistakes include the nurse’s public announcement of the issue, Sue’s access of the chart to discover information about the patient’s diagnosis,