Burning Up While Burning Out

Stress Reduction, Compassion Fatigue Awareness, Burnout Prevention. Healthcare professionals, regardless of specialty and work setting, are under more stress than ever evidenced by increases in demand for quality services that are more efficient and extremely thorough, higher costs, reduced staffing, and diminishing resources. Many healthcare workers are putting in longer hours for less pay. From working extra twenty-four shifts to simply burning the midnight oil catching up on paperwork, the healthcare industry puts a great deal of stress and fatigue on the average worker and their relationships, including family. Healthcare professionals bear witness to human suffering on a routine basis and are constantly reminded that tragedy, pain, and challenge often loom large in the midst of helping patients heal. The Global Coronavirus Pandemic adds a new dimension of chaos and stress on healthcare systems and their workers. As a result, stress, compassion fatigue and burnout have quickly become the major hazard of a profession whose basis was founded on the Hippocratic oath and the conduit of delivering continuity and compassion to patients.