If you take care of your people, the mission takes care of itself.

“You’re taught ‘you don’t show the chink in your armor, you don’t show weakness.’ So you push it all down. That’s not successful caregiving,” said Flarity.

This is the mantra that Kathleen Flarity, a career combat medic from Headquarters U.S. Air Force in Colorado and a research nurse scientist at UCHealth, says you’re taught when you enter the military. But she never thought she’d be applying the same principle to her profession.

Flarity, as of this year, has become a much in-demand speaker and instructor in the growing field of Compassion Fatigue Resiliency Training — meaning, burnout in the field of nursing.

“I’ve been watching people I care about suffer, and I was interested to know if there was something that could be done about it,” Flarity said.

“Compassion fatigue has two components: There’s the burnout component, and then there’s the secondary traumatic stress — the witnessing of pain and suffering of others. That’s inherent to anybody who chooses the caring profession,” she added.

Flarity says these issues have always existed in nursing. They’re just showing up now in new ways, including in a high turnover rate within the profession at a time when we need more nurses than ever. She only realized there was something going on back in 2003 after her best friend came back from an air medical evacuation deployment.

“He had difficulty personally and professionally. He was argumentative, had difficulty sleeping. He had flashbacks and avoidant behaviors, and he actually left the profession of nursing and the military after that,” said Flarity.

She began to search for an intervention and worked with Dr. Eric Gentry, a pioneer in the field, to develop a program. Flarity now uses her best friend’s story, detailed here in this YouTube video, when she talks with others.

[lz_third_party includes=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rswHbCZmT0c”]

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“All the [health care] arenas teach stoicism and objectivity. You’re taught ‘you don’t show the chink in your armor, you don’t show weakness.’ So you push it all down. That’s not successful caregiving. People who are drawn to the caregiving profession tend to be more empathetic than others. And because of that, we’re more exposed to taking home the pain and suffering of others. All of that tends to build if you don’t work on the resiliency piece. If leadership doesn’t support the staff to make them feel valued, wanted, needed and address some of the burnout — this will only get worse.”

Health care systems are starting to see that Flarity and others who are advocating for a healthier workplace are onto something.

A recent Hospitals & Health Networks newsletter shared the attention being given to the nursing burnout epidemic, labeling it a “public health crisis” and citing a lack of leadership for the trend.

One reader, “eiggam2,” responded to one of the articles with these comments: “Nursing leadership is a root cause [of burnout] or lack thereof. The gap between those assigned to these leadership roles and those who perform actual nursing care is overwhelmingly wide and continues to broaden. Theoretically, we can invent pseudo solutions, which were dreamed up in some boardroom, but until we hand nursing back to nurses, we will be doomed to extinction.”

The article noted new initiatives some health care systems are taking to support nurses.

The Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Midwestern Regional Medical Center in Zion, Illinois, recently developed five “renewal rooms” to help nurses rejuvenate and refresh while caring for patients.

Oncology nurses reported emotional exhaustion and low rates of personal accomplishment.

The renewals rooms include soft lighting, a soothing décor, a massage chair, aromatherapy, music therapy options, and journaling opportunities, CTCA said. Nurses use the rooms to get up to 15 minutes of privacy after a stressful event, or to simply recharge during a busy day.

The hospital made the investment after a 2011 study found that one-third of oncology nurses demonstrated emotional exhaustion and reported low rates of personal accomplishment, one-quarter reported depersonalization, and half reported levels of emotional distress.

CTCA may be onto something. In just the last few months, Flarity has started getting calls from 911 centers, fire departments, and other health care institutions to provide training for management and staff. This is in addition to the classroom teaching she does with nurse residents at UCHealth on three different campuses, and the work she is doing with her colleagues.

She reminds nurses what is within their circle of control, and helps them find ways to relax throughout their shift.

“You’re not going to add things onto an already busy day. But when they go to wash their hands, they can think about taking some slow, deep breaths. They can think about the warmth of the water — the soap, washing away the stress of the patient. They can be open to the next experience.”

If she’s helping others, Flarity says it’s an honor and very humbling. She is grateful people appreciate the training. But her motivation is also to help this profession survive, one she has worked in for nearly four decades.

“If I am passionate and love what I do, the patients are going to feel that. I’m going to make fewer medical errors. I’m going to have more of myself in my job and the patients are going to feel it. So patient satisfaction, and satisfaction within the organization, is going to go up. So the bottom line goes up.”