Wiklund Gustin, L., & Wagner, L. (2013). The butterfly effect of caring - clinical nursing teachers ' understanding of self-compassion as a source to compassionate care. Scandinavian Journal Of Caring Sciences, 27(1), 175-183. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6712.2012.01033.…
Compassion is defined as a sympathetic consciousness of others distress together with a desire to alleviate it (Merriam. Webster.com). It has a fundamental role among the healthcare workers. Especially among nurses, when they are indulging in bedside care for their patients. It helps the patients to relieve their stress and tension. Nurses have to go through different job description during their twelve hours shift. It start from the assessment of the patient, check vital signs, carryout various safety and comfort measures, administering medication and even to participate the resuscitative measures to save the life of a person. During this period due to emotional stress and physical fatigue make a person exhausted and drained. Nurses have to undergo the sane process many days a week for many years. So there is no surprise if any health care worker is emotionally and physically tired and upset. This is called as compassion fatigue. It can be due to the over strain and stress from the work load and demand from the patient and family. Most often it happens due to the continuous work over load, stress, inadequate relaxation time, over demanding. It can leads to the health care workers to be burn out and also leads to secondary traumatization. This assignment explores about the nature and causes of five major concepts of compassion fatigue. It also address the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of the care giver and giving examples of coping strategies and resources to be used by the care giver.…
Compassionate: for the organization means to improve the lives of others, as well as respecting one another as you would have them respect you; that is learned at a very young age, compassion is caring for another.…
Dictionary.com describes compassion as a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering (2012). Bush describes compassion fatigue as a complex emotion that allows caregivers to hold and sustain themselves in emotional balance while holding patients’ despair in one hand and their hopefulness in the other (2009). Being able to identify the warning signs, know the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of you as a caregiver, and knowing different coping skills and ways to deal with the stressors of juggling life’s activities can help us as caregivers to keep ourselves in balance.…
Helping others puts you in direct contact with other people’s lives. As you probably have experienced, your compassion for those you help has both positive and negative aspects. Compassion fatigue can strike the most caring and dedicated nurses, social workers, physicians and personal support workers alike. These changes can affect both their personal and professional lives with symptoms such as difficulty concentrating, intrusive imagery, and loss of hope, exhaustion and irritability. It can also lead to profound shifts in the way helpers view the world and their loved ones. Additionally, helpers may become dispirited and increasingly cynical at work, they may make clinical errors, violate client boundaries, lose a respectful stance towards their clients and contribute to a toxic work environment. It has been shown that, when we are suffering from compassion fatigue, we work more rather than less. What suffers is our health, our relationship with others, our personal lives and eventually our clients.…
Working in the healthcare field, especially in nursing, is more of a calling than a job, in this student 's opinion. It requires passionate dedication to patients, long hours and often means putting the needs of others before oneself. However, these things are the very reason that many nurses experience exhaustion, disappointment, and the ever-famous "burn out." Compassion fatigue is more common than many believe and can be serious. This paper will discuss the issues that arise from compassion fatigue and its causes,…
7). There are resources available to us to determine if we might be suffering from Compassion Fatigue. There is a self assessment test nurses can take located at www.compassionfatigue.org. Other resources available are books related to healthy care giving and decreasing personal stress. Nurses can also attend self help meetings geared towards personal joy and taking care of you first. With awareness and knowledge compassion fatigue can be prevented or recognized and managed. Nurses are deeply caring individuals but we can get tired. We must remember to be an advocate for ourselves as well as our patients. This will not only benefit the nurse themselves but ultimately their patients as well, who will receive the best of…
Compassion is an essential attribute that nurses must posses in order to provide appropriate care to the patients and families they come in contact with. Nurses work many long shifts taking care of sick patients and grieving families, and may not take the time to care for their physical, emotional and spiritual needs properly. After a while, the long hours and stress may catch up with them and cause compassion fatigue or even burnout. Nurses must learn to care for themselves first and foremost in order to be healthy, happy and spiritually sound, and this in turns allows them to provide great care to their…
Emerging evidence describes some of the heavy tolls that health professionals experience as they deal with loss of patients, traumatic situations, supporting families and the overall stress that comes with the nursing profession as a whole. Each patient and family has particular needs (physical, psychological, social and spiritual) and are deserving of expert care, and it is this intensity of need that places nurses at risk of professional compassion fatigue (Melvin, 2012). Presented in this writing is the definition of compassion fatigue, related concepts to compassion fatigue, description of a model nurse who has compassion, description of a nurse who has compassion fatigue, nursing implications of compassion fatigue and personal aims after reviewing compassion fatigue.…
The idea of caring for others is the motivating reason that draws most people into nursing. The concept of being a supportive part of a person’s health care needs is exactly the cause of compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue can hit the best of nurses. Nurses who are highly driven and detail oriented are at a higher risk for developing compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue was a term first applied in 1992; it is described as a syndrome that occurs in nurses when caring for a patient facing life-altering or life-threatening changes resulting from an illness. Compassion fatigue is prevalent among nurses today, due to increasing patient loads, as a result of nurse shortages and hospital cut backs. Compassion fatigue in nursing should not be ignored. There are classic warning signs that someone might be experiencing compassion fatigue. Recognizing the signs of compassion fatigue and following the necessary steps to prevent and treat it can provide one with the tools needed to make their nursing career rewarding.…
Van der Cingal, M. (2009). Compassion and Professional Care: Exploring the Domain. Nursing Philosophy, 102, 124-136.…
During my service in the United States Army, my insignia for the Medical Corps was “Care with Compassion.” I believe this holds true for nursing today. Nurses provide the highest quality of care achievable with compassion for the client. A nurse must be culturally sensitive, promote health, and apply knowledge of new sciences to their profession (Catalano, 2009). A nurse must have knowledge in many areas such as Psychology, Science, Ethics, Culture, Religion, Education, and Critical Thinking. Because of this knowledge, the emotional demands of nurses are much more than the physical demands (Catalano, 2009).…
Definitions of compassion in nursing care: Compassion is a force that “impels and empowers people to not only acknowledge, but also act” (Schantz, 2007 in Nursing Forum). This definition builds off of the general definition provided by Miriam Webster, and it strengthens the link between acknowledgements of…
The concept of fate functions as a central theme in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In the opening prologue of the play, the chorus informs the audience that Romeo and Juliet are “Star Crossed Lovers”. What the chorus means by this is that Romeo and Juliet are controlled by fate, a force which is often related to the movements of the stars. No one can comprehend what fate has in store and neither did Romeo and Juliet. Fate is a powerful force, whether predestined or persuasions of your actions that will shape you lives, just as it did with Romeo and Juliet. Fate is something that most people do not believe in, but in the small percentage that do, include William Shakespeare. Shakespeare tries to prove that fate to be true through figurative language and incidents in the play. Fate is involved in all the events surrounding the young lovers: the ancient and inexplicable hate between their families, the impossible series of mishaps which ruin Friar Lawrence’s plans, and the tragic timing of Romeo’s suicide and Juliet’s awakening. The whole structure of the play relies upon the fate from which the two lovers cannot escape.…
Some organizational theories could explain the Enron’s failure. Looking at the organizational structure and management of Enron, The structures were flat before the bureaucratic structure developed, then the bureaucratic structures developed in order to increase control. There were vertical structures where there was high level of control and according to theories the organizational circle is moving back to flat structure. In Enron Corporation, internally it had such a highly decentralized financial control and decision making structure that made it impossible to get a clear view on the corporations ' operations and activities. Along with a "decentralized" structure came a lack of corporate culture, lack of clear accountability, and lack of transparency.…