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Nurses Confronting the Coronavirus: Challenges Met and Lessons Learned to Date


ABSTRACT: Registered nurses are an essential workforce group across the globe. They use their expertise and skill sets every day in clinical practice to protect, promote, and advocate on behalf of patients and families under their care. In this article we discuss the physical, emotional, and moral stresses that nurses are experiencing in their day-to-day practice settings created by the novel coronavirus. We consider the demands placed on nurses by unexpected patient surges within hospital environments and inadequate personal protective equipment and other critical resources, challenging nurses’ ability to meet their professional and ethical obligations. We also share our thoughts on supporting nurses and others now, and ideas for needed healing for both individuals and organizations as we move forward. Finally, we argue for the need for substantive reform of institutional processes and systems that can deliver quality care in the future when faced with another devastating humanitarian and public health crises. “Nursing is not just evaluating patient symptoms, dressing wounds, lab work, and value-based care—nursing impacts the soul in each of us. In our weakest places, in our most vulnerable areas of life, nursing has literally opened the door to the most painful, but most rewarding moments in the lives of others. The dying, the hurt, the raw, emotional places of life: nurses have the privilege to walk in these spaces and provide a comforting hand, a compassionate touch, and a life-changing presence.”—Love et al., 2021, 87

SUBMITTER: Ulrich C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7462465 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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