In late December 2020, I learned that a nurse colleague had perished from COVID-19. Although she was working out of state at the time, this was a bright, enthusiastic young woman I had mentored, and the news of her sudden death stunned me. I lacked words to describe what I was feeling, but my energy level plummeted and my spirits became disheartened. How many more might succumb, I wondered? One year later, I found words in print to describe what I had been feeling.
Nursing Times reported findings from a group of nurses in the United Kingdom regarding the cost to their mental health and well-being related to working through the pandemic. When questioned, one nurse described herself as feeling "utterly broken." Others expressed feeling "exhausted, low and under-appreciated." Two thirds of the nurses surveyed believed their mental health had deteriorated since the peak of the pandemic plus continuing into fall, as cited by the same source.
Unfortunately, these findings regarding the well-being of nurses are not new. Even before the pandemic, suicide statistics among nurses were higher than those of the general population, demonstrating that stressors on America's heroes often prove too much to bear.
Of the 1200 UK nurses who responded to the
