Life Work Counseling

Yesterday's ruling by the FTC effectively bans the use of non-compete agreements that have historically limited the autonomy of specially trained medical and healthcare workers. This is a big win for workers and potentially benefits patients by allowing providers to go where they're needed.

The Expected Impact of the FTC’s Expected Rule on Healthcare Industry The Proposed Rule

From the article: When I asked a close colleague ... about her thoughts on moral distress, at first, she didn't know what I was talking about. But as I shared some examples, she recognized the sentiment.

A few days later, she sent me an email. "I'm feeling the relief of decades of suffering from it [moral distress] and it not having a name," she wrote.

Doctors have their own diagnosis: 'Moral distress' from an inhumane health system A term coined to evoke the torment felt by soldiers as they process the cruelty of war, it's now used by doctors to describe the guilt and helplessness we feel when patients can't access needed care.

Today I'm reflecting on how easily a "for now" job becomes a "forever job" when we lose track of our values. Keeping your mission rooted in your values requires ongoing effort and reflection.

Today is day 1 of the largest nursing strike in history. 15,000 nurses in Minnesota are striking after months of negotiations. You will see this portrayed in the media WITHOUT disclosing CEO pay from the hospital system. Do yourself a favor and read this article from June 1st that contains some CEO pay data.

https://minnesotareformer.com/2022/06/01/minnesota-nurses-attack-hospital-executive-pay-amid-union-negotiations/

Photo via reddit /u/burinsan

Meeting the challenge isn't always about controlling & eliminating discomfort. Learning to function alongside your challenges can be transformative.

Participating in processes that are coercive and conflict with your personal sense of moral duty inflicts a type of traumatic stress called moral injury.
https://www.facebook.com/1428703920782620/posts/3171833613136300/?app=fbl

What it's Like To Work as a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Former travel nurse Leah Helmbrecht shares her journey to becoming a sexual assault nurse examiner and the importance of advocating for her patients.

Nurses are subjected to moral distress for the sake of profit, and gaslighted by administrators who would let us believe our suffering is driven by necessity.
https://youtu.be/PrDyii0P4DU

Hospital Greed Is Destroying Our Nurses. Here’s Why. | NYT Opinion We’re entering our third year of Covid, and America’s nurses — who we celebrated as heroes during the early days of lockdown — are now leaving the bedside. T...

I'm unusually optimistic about this $6M research grant because they will be focusing on the "organizational, policy-level drivers" of burnout. If anything good comes from the moment that healthcare is within presently, I hope that it is this: Healthcare leaders need to stop telling HCWs that they are burning out due to lack of self-care.

GW Launches Project to Combat Burnout among Health Care Workers A $6 million grant will support research aimed at strengthening the nation’s health care workforce, which has been strained by the pandemic and other factors.

Nobody goes into the healthcare field with the intent to strike, nor does anyone good into the field to be exploited and burnt out. This news is a win for nurses and patients.

Breaking: We did it! 🎉 After months of hard work and solidarity we won a new tentative agreement (TA) with Kaiser Permanente that includes staffing improvements, good annual wage increases, racial justice, good contracts for newly organized members, and NO two-tier! Alliance unions have withdrawn strike notices. Now we will vote on the TA.

[Content Warning] I avoid posting emotionally charged material because many of us, and most especially healthcare workers, have had enough over the past year-and-a-half. I don't want to add to anyone's stress level right now. But I'm posting this video today because it's a message that many at the bedside are trying to get across to the public right now. In short, get vaccinated.

Sugi 🐙 on TikTok Alarm fatigue is high these days.

Registered Nurse, Ashley Shackelford, made the decision to push back publicly against her employer when grievances from she and her colleagues were dismissed by leadership. Shackelford's choice was to do the difficult thing that she was faced with. Many of her colleagues undoubtedly chose to either tolerate these conditions or seek another job, not because either course of action reflected their personal values, but because the alternative is downright terrifying. I hope for the best in Shackelford's future, and above all else I hope no matter how this turns out for her, she rests assured that she has been true to herself by committing to this difficult choice.

Ascension St. Vincent responds to controversial, virtual meeting shared on social media A former registered nurse at Ascension St. Vincent says she knows why employees are frustrated. Video shared on social media shows a leader with Ascension St. Vincent telling workers they can go somewhere else to work in response to their complaints.

Today is Workers Memorial Day.

"More than four in 10 nurses (42.7%) say their organization has an adequate supply of PPE, but there are several indications that many nurses are either reusing PPE (52.6%) or using their own (18.7%). In fact, 52.6% said their facility was reusing PPE."
A recent industry survey indicates one in five nurses anticipate leaving their current position by the end of 2021, and this is in part due to eroding confidence in workplace assurances such as "adequate PPE."

Issues that keep nurses up at night, according to recent survey More than 10,000 nursing professionals responded to the survey. These are nurse's biggest concerns.

They don't teach this in school, but those who learn it have longer, happier, healthier careers in healthcare.

"Physicians are trained in a medical system that, by and large, treats burnout as a byproduct of our jobs and a badge of honor — even as it leads to depression, errors in patient care and people leaving the profession."

The culture needs to change.

I'm A Psychiatrist Who Treats Health Workers. A Year Into The Pandemic, We're All Suffering From Burnout About 50% of medical professionals were dealing with burnout before COVID-19, writes Dr. Jessi Gold. The pandemic has made it exponentially worse.

Saturday March 6th is and I think we all have a reluctant appreciation for our dentists, don't we? In fact, dentists face many of the same stressors as other healthcare providers, including challenging relationships with patients, uncomfortable physical workspaces, daunting student-loan debt, and isolation from peers. Yet dentists also frequently score far below other HCPs in public opinion polls, and this lack of public support can be especially stressful for our dentist friends. So take a moment to remember the dentist in your life today, a thank you card or a word of appreciation can mean a lot.

In observance of Black History Month today I am looking back at the early decades of the HIV epidemic and honoring the activists and fallen members of African American communities who were left behind even as the early HIV awareness movement made hard-fought gains with the American public.

In 1986 activist Craig Harris (pictured here) proclaimed, “Existing AIDS organizations, which have grown out of the predominantly white gay movement of the ’60s and ’70s, have been very effective in serving their communities...Similarly, it is time for both traditional and newly established black political, social, and health organizations to do the necessary outreach to our own communities which are at risk.”

At the American Public Health Association's first session on AIDS in October 1986 no person of color was invited to speak, and in an act of courageous defiance Harris shouted out, "I will be heard!" as he took the stage to educate the public health community about the unique challenges communities of color face in the age of HIV.

Later that year Harris co-founded the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC), a group that is popularly known for their collaboration with Patti Labelle in 1989 on the "Live Long, Sugar" campaign. Craig Harris died in 1992, though his work helped to build momentum in African American HIV activism that continues to this day.

Today in America 1 in every 2 new cases of HIV is in an African American community. Below I have provided some information about upcoming educational offerings for healthcare professionals (and others) who wish to continue Harris' work.

February 8, 2021 - The Counter Narrative Project - Nexus: On Mario Cooper and Black HIV Movement History
https://www.thecounternarrative.org/nexus-mario-cooper-event

February 9, 2021 - National Black Nurses Association - Understanding and Addressing HIV Risk in Black Communities (PDF Flyer)https://www.nbna.org/files/2021/Flyers/GILEAD%20HIV%20Event.pdf

March 30-31, 2021 - The fifth annual Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit (Presented by Craig Harris' NMAC)
https://www.biomedicalhivsummit.org/about/

January 25th is National Intravenous Nurse Day! I'm celebrating IV nurses with the image that I most closely associate with them: the Ascom phone. Like elves in the cobbler's shop, IV nurses come and go from our lives leaving tell- tale upper extremities swaddled in warm blankets, and shiny, new IV appliances dressed in Tegaderm & Venigard 💝

We’ve been seeing this for months now. It’s a normal part of disaster response, as the initial public support gives way to resource shortages and workers’ duties remain. But this disaster is different in two significant ways: (1) the protracted timeline profoundly exacerbates exhaustion, and (2) the willful refusal to support community health by distancing and wearing masks feels less like apathy and more like repeated insults upon injuries.

Exhausted Health Care Workers Feel Betrayed by Those Who Ignore COVID Rules | KQED As holiday surges overwhelm hospitals, a sense of betrayal and anger has grown among exhausted health care workers, some of who feel ready to crack from the horrific scences they see inside hospitals.

This is a great reminder as many of us consider New Year's resolutions. Why do we fortify ourselves to live against our values? It's more effective to focus on living the life we want.

When good things come from this pandemic, one might be the realization that hospital CEOs can't earn $13M per year.

“Lean industry practices slashed preparedness. They treat safe staffing and needed supplies as a drag on budget goals and profit margins, rather than the prerequisite for a humane, fully prepared patient-oriented health care system.”
-Bonnie Castillo, Executive Director, National Nurses United

Hospital CEOs Have Gotten Rich Cutting Staff and Supplies. Now They’re Not Ready for the Next Wave. Years of understaffing nurses and health care workers have consequences, experts say.

This is such a big week as many of us, so practiced in avoiding strong emotions over the past 9 months, are now opening our hearts and processing some of this difficult journey now that safety seems near.

Pulled By Hope And Grief: What It Felt Like To Get The Vaccine As I stared at the small glass vial, time slowed down, writes Dr. Joshua Barocas. In that moment, I thought of the past 10 months.

A colleague shared this perspective on holiday cards, and I think her advice hold true for many of the social challenges we take on during this season.

Cut Christmas Card Comparison As a child my family would receive Christmas cards from family, neighbors, friends of new and old. There was one particular family that we would always look forward to receiving their card. You know the one, pictures of a perfect nuclear family and complete with a double sided letter touting the ach...

It's SO hard to keep a sense of perspective these days (from Reddit u/TorchIt)

"The authors cite what they call a 'get over it' culture in the U.S. and in the healthcare field. 'In some settings, workers are expected to buck up, figure it out, get it done with the equipment they have, and move on to the next patient. Trying to navigate a pandemic in such a culture (where burnout is already rife) is pushing workers to the breaking point.'"
https://www.thebaynet.com/articles/1120/covid-takes-toll-on-healthcare-workers-mental-health.html

COVID Takes Toll On Healthcare Workers' Mental Health NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Healthcare workers holding the frontline against COVID face not only the risk of infection but incredible stress on their mental health. Now, many are showing s...