Brittany Dillard has worked across the country in COVID-19 hot spots for 16 months. She has seen many deaths during the pandemic, but the Delta variant is different; patients are younger and unvaccinated, and she has seen more patients die in the last two weeks than in the previous six months.
A nurse at Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville, Fla., caring for patients with COVID-19 said that some patients are begging to be vaccinated as they await intubation. "They're desperate because they're gasping for air, they can't breathe, they're scared, they feel like they're going to pass away," said the nurse, who encouraged people to get a COVID-19 vaccination before getting sick.
Florence "SeeSee" Rigney, 96, who was said to be the oldest working nurse in the US, recently retired from MultiCare Tacoma General Hospital in Washington state after a seven-decade career. "Don't ever think that you know it all," Rigney offered as advice for new nurses.
Tower Health's Reading Hospital has improved nurse staffing with a new staffing model driven by predictive analytics and a commitment to gathering data. The plan has led to significant savings and greater nurse job satisfaction.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that an additional 1.1 million nurses will be needed to satisfy care demands by 2022. Nurses in Florida discuss how they are handling staffing shortages, and Usha Menon, dean of the USF Health College of Nursing, notes that many nurses are dealing with issues related to burnout.
Companies are seeking employees with increasing urgency, particularly in health care and in certain other fields. In the past few months, companies offering perks such as hiring incentives have increased, Indeed data suggests.
Nurses are in great need of effective tools to improve their self-care. In these videos, you will learn of resources available to help nurses deal with mental health challenges and the stress from COVID-19, including self-compassion techniques, building resiliency, mindfulness meditation and suicide prevention. View all six 5- to 13-minute Quick Videos on this subject.
