On this post I found online, it gave a story of a Rowena Orosco, a registered nurse who worked in the John Hopkins Bayview Burn Center for three years when a family of nine came in after their home caught fire. Out of the whole family, there was only one survivor; a seven year old little girl who had burns over nearly 70% of her body. As the medical team worked to save her, Orosco sat with the little girl, holding her hand until she passed away. According to Nurse.com, "this moment haunts the nurse 15 years later."
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| This is a quote from Rowena Orosco, who had lost her seven year old patient. |
"Stifling personal emotions about patient death has been equated with professionalism for nurses and physicians." (Nurse.com). One man who conducted a study about patient loss and its affect on health care workers, Robert S. McKelvey, found that nurses as a whole, coped better with these feelings than physicians. McKelvey said that nurses were more open to discussing the loss of patients than the physicians.
If they had gone through more of a grieving process, they were mentally healthier. He also states that those who hold it in pay the price by not being able to deal with the feelings in the appropriate time or place. They may feel reluctant to becoming close with other patients, have difficulty with personal relationships, or have trouble eating and sleeping properly.
How a nurse responds to his or her first death will determine how he or she deals with future losses. If they feel they are responsible for the death, or don't have the proper support system from their fellow colleagues, they could begin to gain frustration and more upset with future deaths.
Some nurses said in a study conducted by Lisa Gerow, that they wished their hospital had done more to support them after losing patients. They also said they wished that they had learned more about how to cope with these feelings in nursing school. However, they also said that even though those were tough times to go through, they have grown and bettered themselves as nurses as a result.
Remember the story I opened up this blog post with? At the end of this emotional article, I was able to find something rewarding. It ends with Orosco, the nurse who lost the seven year old little girl, getting a thank you letter from a relative of the family. Orosco says "even though we didn't make any difference [by saving her life], that moment was a big thing, that she didn't die by herself. Since then, I have never let a patient die alone."
When we think of nurses, we think of them healing. There's a reality we never think of, losing someone to death. I know that when I decided to become a nurse, I didn't think of the times I'd lose a patient. Remember a time when you lost someone you cared for, whether it be a family member or a friend, and the grief and hurt you felt.
One thing I gained from this article is that as a nurse, each of your patients become personal to you. You take each family in as your own, and don't want to see anyone mourning the loss of someone they care for. Nurses sacrifice this feeling daily, each time they walk in to work, because you never know what will walk through that door. This nurturing side is what makes nurses a wonderful part of our health care system, and another reason why they should be highly appreciated for what they do.
-Brooke B.
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Nurses.com. "Good Grief: Nurses Cope With Patient Deaths." Nurse.com, 21 Feb. 2011.
OnCourse Learning Corporation. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
LINK TO ARTICLE DISCUSSED ABOVE:
https://news.nurse.com/2011/02/21/good-grief-nurses-cope-with-patient-deaths/
Another interesting read with how death anxiety impacts nurses' caring for patients at the end of life:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3565229/
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