I have been in the healthcare/wellness field for around 12 years. I have only been a nurse since 2018, but my advocacy for the care of nurses, and nursing students has been a part of my journey since the very beginning. I have held MANY different jobs, in different specialty areas, I have been off the beaten path, I was working local temp contracts within a year of starting my career. I have mainly been an outpatient/ambulatory nurse. I still have not found my "niche," if you will.

What I do know, is that Nurses (all healthcare professionals) need help, they need a voice, and they need to be able to speak and feel understood. We need to help the helpers. We need support from those who have stood in our shoes, (and probably other bodily fluids and medications..🙂).  Maybe one day I can be a part of such an amazing team like Debriefing the Front Lines. This organization provides the aforementioned support, on a nurse to nurse level. Maybe, I was meant to support and advocate for nurses. The only true way to learn how to help the helpers is to become one yourself. So I did.

When I was a student I wrote an email to a professor in November 2016 (we had a summer start), with the support of two former classmates (they left the program - but I am far too stubborn for that). We hit a brick wall when we tried to advocate for ourselves and our classmates. But we tried.

And now I am trying again. 

I will never forget an exercise we completed during our first semester of nursing school: In pairs, we had to tell our partner about a traumatic moment in our lives. Our job as the listener, was to show little to no emotion, only to acknowledge and actively listen. 

Then, you graduate from school, and you start working. You see things. What do you do with all those traumatic moments? The ones we are taught to face, expressionless,”with empathy, never sympathy,” as I was once told. What do you do when you are never taught to care for YOURSELF, in the context of your profession, in a realistic sense?

Please consider donating to help a Nurse who needs support.