Mental Health In Nursing

A friend on social media shared a recent article regarding the rate of nurse suicides in the UK. 300 nurses in 7 years, 23% higher than the UK national average.

Problem is, the US does not track nurse suicides. We track veterans, active duty military, police, doctors, air traffic controllers, firefighters and teachers. Not nurses.

I’m in my 25th year of nursing since graduation. I can tell you that nursing in the US is one of the most stressful careers you can imagine. As in other countries, we have the stresses of long hours, departmental politics and holding human lives in our hands.

Make a mistake or fail to identify a mistake in most careers, not much really happens. Maybe money is lost. You may lose your job but not your ability to work in your profession. Police shoot an unarmed civilian, they will have the backing of their department. They may get time off with pay. Not so with nursing. In nursing, if you make a mistake you are the lowest person on the totem pole in a system designed less to prevent mistakes than to assign blame. If a doctor writes an inappropriate order which harms a patient, if the nurse carries the order out, the nurse will be responsible. If the nurse refuses to carry out the same order, often they can be written up or fired. I have personally been written up on multiple occasions for doing what was the correct medical decision. I once had accusations against me claiming I killed a patient with my decisions. That claim was by a non-medical staffing administrator who had the power to…