Critical Resilience For Nurses

The nursing profession is under pressure. Financial demands, student debt, the target culture, political scrutiny in the wake of major care scandals and increasing workloads are all taking their toll on professional morale and performance. This timely book considers the meaning of resilience in this adverse context and explains why measures to preserve individual nurses’ and students’ well-being are flawed if they don’t take into account wider political and organizational perspectives. Arguing that healthcare can be thought about and experienced differently, this book: provides a summary of the latest research on resilience, explaining its relevance and also limitations for nurses; considers debates about compassion and highlights the effects of policy agendas on nurse education and nursing work; re-evaluates nursing’s professional identity, including where nursing has come from and the effects of class, gender and race on its powerbase; assesses the role of politics and social media, both in driving change and feeding resistance; and introduces the idea of critical resilience as a complete framework for resisting bullying and fostering survival and change in the nursing workforce. Direct, upbeat, at times provocative and witty, this agenda-setting book enables nurses to understand why they feel the way they do. It also lists what opportunities are available to them to change, resist and survive in what has become a complex, challenging – if still deeply rewarding – line of work.

The nursing profession is under pressure. Financial demands, student debt, the target culture, political scrutiny in the wake of major care scandals and increasing workloads are all taking their toll on professional morale and performance. This timely book considers the meaning of resilience in this adverse context and explains why measures to preserve individual nurses’ and students’ well-being are flawed if they don’t take into account wider political and organizational perspectives. Arguing that healthcare can be thought about and experienced differently, this book: provides a summary of the latest research on resilience, explaining its relevance and also limitations for nurses; considers debates about compassion and highlights the effects of policy agendas on nurse education and nursing work; re-evaluates nursing’s professional identity, including where nursing has come from and the effects of class, gender and race on its powerbase; assesses the role of politics and social media, both in driving change and feeding resistance; and introduces the idea of critical resilience as a complete framework for resisting bullying and fostering survival and change in the nursing workforce. Direct, upbeat, at times provocative and witty, this agenda-setting book enables nurses to understand why they feel the way they do. It also lists what opportunities are available to them to change, resist and survive in what has become a complex, challenging – if still deeply rewarding – line of work.

"This book is of value to nurses at all levels of their career."--Critical Care Nurse "This is a very practical and easy to read book with many strategies to help new nurses adapt to the stressors of the workplace. It is filled with thought-provoking stories and activities that can foster confidence in tackling workplace issues as well as self-care activities to enhance wholeness and wellbeing. Some suggested strategies for successful outcomes include finding a good mentor, relaxation techniques, using humor, self-reflection, and exercising. There is something in this book for everyone."Score: 96, 4 stars. --Doody's Medical Reviews This essential resource is for nursing and allied health students across the globe who are undertaking-or are about to undertake-their internship and initial work experience. This reference identifies practical strategies for career advancement and for overcoming stressors and challenges in the workplace. With the tools from this book, readers will be able to gain the strength and tactics to break the cycles of hostility and workplace negativity, and thereby change the health system and provide better care for their clients. Key Features: Presents primary narratives and resilience strategies Provides creative resolutions for coping with complex clients, grief, inter-professional tensions, and more difficult issues Contains reader activities that encourage students to become agents of change Highlights resilience strategies; key coping mechanisms; lessons learned; discussion questions; creative thinking exercises; and teacher-related activities

Ideas about resilience and identity continue to be promoted, discussed and debated in nursing. This book uses narratives to explore these complex and important concepts, unsettling our certainties and opening up new perspectives on what they might mean and involve. This engaging book recounts direct and vivid stories told by or about nurses. These vignettes discuss nursing’s ideals without idealising them and show nursing work and the lives of nurses in all their complexity. They include contributions from mental health nurses, a former nurse, student nurses, a migrant nurse and a whistle-blowing nurse, among others. The book ends with chapter-by-chapter contextual material to promote reflection, discussion and further reading. Written with nursing students preparing to transition to the workplace and professional status in mind, this thought-provoking book is also suitable for nurses and nurse academics interested in resilience and issues around professional identity.

Suffering is an unavoidable reality in health care. Not only are patients and families suffering but also the clinicians who care for them. Commonly the suffering experienced by clinicians is moral in nature, in part a reflection of the increasing complexity of health care, their roles within it, and the expanding range of available interventions. Moral suffering is the anguish that occurs when the burdens of treatment appear to outweigh the benefits; scarce human and material resources must be allocated; informed consent is incomplete or inadequate; or there are disagreements about goals of treatment among patients, families or clinicians. Each is a source of moral adversity that challenges clinicians' integrity: the inner harmony that arises when their essential values and commitments are aligned with their choices and actions. If moral suffering is unrelieved it can lead to disengagement, burnout, and undermine the quality of clinical care. The most studied response to moral adversity is moral distress. The sources and sequelae of moral distress, one type of moral suffering, have been documented among clinicians across specialties. It is vital to shift the focus to solutions and to expanded individual and system strategies that mitigate the detrimental effects of moral suffering. Moral resilience, the capacity of an individual to restore or sustain integrity in response to moral adversity, offers a path forward. It encompasses capacities aimed at developing self-regulation and self-awareness, buoyancy, moral efficacy, self-stewardship and ultimately personal and relational integrity. Clinicians and healthcare organizations must work together to transform moral suffering by cultivating the individual capacities for moral resilience and designing a new architecture to support ethical practice. Used worldwide for scalable and sustainable change, the Conscious Full Spectrum approach, offers a method to solve problems to support integrity, shift patterns that undermine moral resilience and ethical practice, and source the inner potential of clinicians and leaders to produce meaningful and sustainable results that benefit all.

In consultaton with Consulting Editor, Dr. Cynthia Bautista, Dr. Bartos has put together a comprehensive and succint look at strategies to improve wellness for the critical care nurse. Expert authors have submitted clinical review articles on the following topics: Self-Assessments for Mental Wellness in Critical Care; Developing a Wellness Company for Critical Care Nurses; Self-Care Tips and Tricks for the Critical Care Nurse; Building Resilience in the Critical Care Nurse; The Impact of Rotating Shift Work on Self-Care Behaviors of the Critical Care Nurse; Mitigating the Stress of the Critical Care Nurse; Building a Program of Wellness for Critical Care Nurses; Evaluating the Secondary Stress of Critical Care Providers; Compassion Fatigue in the Intensive Care Unit; Creativity as a Means of Self-Care for Trauma ICU Nurses; and Supporting Self-Care Behaviors throughout the Critical Care Bereavement Process. Readers will come away with the information they need to improve self-care behaviors and mental wellness.

The decade ahead will test the nation's nearly 4 million nurses in new and complex ways. Nurses live and work at the intersection of health, education, and communities. Nurses work in a wide array of settings and practice at a range of professional levels. They are often the first and most frequent line of contact with people of all backgrounds and experiences seeking care and they represent the largest of the health care professions. A nation cannot fully thrive until everyone - no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they make - can live their healthiest possible life, and helping people live their healthiest life is and has always been the essential role of nurses. Nurses have a critical role to play in achieving the goal of health equity, but they need robust education, supportive work environments, and autonomy. Accordingly, at the request of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, on behalf of the National Academy of Medicine, an ad hoc committee under the auspices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted a study aimed at envisioning and charting a path forward for the nursing profession to help reduce inequities in people's ability to achieve their full health potential. The ultimate goal is the achievement of health equity in the United States built on strengthened nursing capacity and expertise. By leveraging these attributes, nursing will help to create and contribute comprehensively to equitable public health and health care systems that are designed to work for everyone. The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity explores how nurses can work to reduce health disparities and promote equity, while keeping costs at bay, utilizing technology, and maintaining patient and family-focused care into 2030. This work builds on the foundation set out by The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health (2011) report.

Patient-centered, high-quality health care relies on the well-being, health, and safety of health care clinicians. However, alarmingly high rates of clinician burnout in the United States are detrimental to the quality of care being provided, harmful to individuals in the workforce, and costly. It is important to take a systemic approach to address burnout that focuses on the structure, organization, and culture of health care. Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being builds upon two groundbreaking reports from the past twenty years, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, which both called attention to the issues around patient safety and quality of care. This report explores the extent, consequences, and contributing factors of clinician burnout and provides a framework for a systems approach to clinician burnout and professional well-being, a research agenda to advance clinician well-being, and recommendations for the field.