What nurses can teach us

[Music]

i am sick

and tired

of

compassion i wasn’t always like this

when i started my nurse training at the

age of 17

i didn’t think much about compassion at

all

i thought about resuscitation and saving

lives and cracking chests

i thought a lot about television

programs like er

and i thought a great deal about george

clooney

but nursing taught me pretty quickly

that saving lives is about a lot more

than cracking chests

in 2018 i left the nursing register and

i am a writer and professor of medical

and health humanities and my research

over the last few years has been about

compassion and empathy and kindness and

what it means to be human

and central to the idea of all my work

is that compassion is the most important

thing of all

and yet i realized

that during my years as a hospital nurse

particularly in intensive care

i felt a bit burnt out

apathetic

and sometimes even indifferent

to extreme suffering

i was experiencing compassion fatigue

pain and trauma like viruses can be

extremely infectious and nurses and

other healthcare workers they swallow

suffering every single day

indeed the word compassion comes from

latin compassiona which means to suffer

with suffering together

and there’s only so long you can do that

for

if you do it right

without becoming a little bit numb

i felt a bit numb

and then came the pandemic

i remember being on a flight once

coming back from kenya and there was an

announcement on the tannoy

is there a doctor or nurse on board the

plane

i looked around

nothing

and then the announcement again is there

a nurse or doctor on board the plane

please make yourself known to the cabin

crew

now

i had no intention of making myself

known

in fact i slid down my seat

um i wanted to drink my gin and tonic

and read my magazine in peace but

the announcement again

and this time the voice was urgent is

there a healthcare worker on the plane

please we need help

we need help

and so i slowly and reluctantly raised

my hand

during the first peak of this pandemic i

slowly and i reluctantly raised my hand

again and i returned to clinical work

for a short time and i found myself the

lead nurse for compassionate care

in one of the field hospitals that had

been hastily set up in just nine days as

a coveted icu

we were told our function was to save as

many lives as possible

and it quickly became very apparent with

this awful awful disease

that we weren’t going to save anywhere

near as many lives as we wanted to

and compassion became our central aim

compassion we realized

is how history will judge us

and it’s how history should judge us

and we weren’t alone in our thinking

there was a time at the beginning of

this a hot moment when the world felt

alive

with compassion

it’s like we were shaken awake

how quickly we forget

one minute people were on their

doorsteps they were banging pots and

clapping for carers and delivering food

parcels to their neighbors who were

shielding and the very next moment

people’s curtains closed

everyone shuffled past each other heads

down no eye contact

everyone

turned inwards we all did just trying to

process our own pain

and a collective numbness swept through

the world

it is no

surprise we are bombarded with tragedy

the kovid 19 pandemic uncovered the

other pandemics that already existed

loneliness

inequality injustice violence racism

mental illness

the events in afghanistan they’re hard

to even think of

and

the existential threat of climate change

we are now told is code red for humanity

we

are tired

we are overwhelmed

and we are saturated with images of

devastating suffering and so sometimes

it’s all we can do to turn off the

relentless news

and watch love island instead

maybe that’s just me

but it is possible to recover from this

compassion fatigue we must recover from

it

i know it’s possible because i did

shortly after returning to clinical work

i remembered something really really

important i remembered what my patients

had taught me

and i remembered what it means to be a

nurse

in all my years in hospitals i never

once met george clooney

but i did meet lots of patients like

betty

betty was elderly and frail and she was

alone and she was lying on a trolley in

a corridor

outside accident in emergency she’d come

into the hospital with chest pain and

hypothermia

i did a 12 lead ecg some observations

some blood tests and we couldn’t find

anything at all wrong with betty so i

got this bear hugger machine which has

white billowing fabric

to warm her up and i made her a sandwich

and a cup of tea and i just sat with her

and held her hand

and then she told me about stan

she told me stan her husband of a

lifetime had died in the hospital two

weeks before

she described her heart pain

not chest pain

she told me how they had danced and how

the fabric from the bear hugger machine

reminded her of the parachute silk from

her wedding dress

and how time flies

and she said that i’d saved her life and

of course i’d done no such thing i just

sat with her a while and i held her hand

but it was impossible to tell where

betty’s hand ended and where my hand

began and nursing exists in that space

we

exist in that space

what a privilege to hold the hand of a

person at the frailest most extreme and

significant moments of their life

to be a nurse

nurses remind us that we are not alone

not even now

but of course they do a lot more than

hold hands

nurses are safety critical rigorously

trained professionals they are

scientists and researchers and leaders

and entrepreneurs

and artists and their clinical experts

they weave around our world caring for

people in every setting you can imagine

school nurses district nurses

practitioners working in mental health

and learning disability settings

forensic nurses military nurses nurses

working in prisons on homeless

healthcare teams in hospices with looked

after children

there are even nurses working behind the

scenes on love island

the world health organization estimates

there are 27.9 million nurses globally

27.9 million individuals who have

despite personal risk

placed compassion at the center of their

universe

for us

nursing is a language with many

different accents but it’s a universal

language too it’s a kind of faith in

itself with compassion at its core

a belief and respect in every single

individual’s worth regardless

if how we treat our most vulnerable is a

measure of our society then the act of

nursing itself is a measure of our

humanity

and we all are now thinking during this

time of great suffering about our

humanity

who are we

who are we meant to be

kovid has given all of us the time for

radical change and the chance for

radical change

but we must shake ourselves awake again

and remember the action we saw at the

beginning of this pandemic when we

glimpsed

our capacity

for grace

for tolerance

and for love

we can remind each other of our

potential by listening really listening

thinking of other families as well as

our own

by helping those who need help in

practical ways and building inclusive

communities betty was right

nurses are right

compassion cannot cure us

but compassion can save us regardless

the word compassion comes from

compassion and meaning to suffer with

but the word suffer comes from feeling

to feel keenly

in this age of isolationism and division

and hatred

it is not feeling anything

that we all must fear

in order to turn outwards we need to

feel all the feelings and remember our

capacity

our incredible human spirit

it’s time for us to raise our hands

rumi was a 13th century afghan poet in

my opinion he was the greatest poet in

all of history and i’m going to leave

you with his words more relevant today

than perhaps ever

i know you are tired

but come

this is the way

thank you

you