SILENT TRAUMA

Healthcare workers and first responders go to work every day to do amazing things for complete strangers. A culture exists, where it is not acceptable to admit how experiencing tragic events affect them. This book focuses on the stressors faced from a nurses perspective, specifically in the emergency department. Traumatic stress is a real problem and contributing factor to the short career life expectancy of many nurses. Nurse turnover is higher than the general population and ER nurses turnover is exponentially higher. Though there is some discussion about fatigue and burnout being generated in the industry, stress from clinical trauma and moral injury is mostly overlooked. The culture of 'we just do not talk about it' must be addressed. The primary goal is to explore specific types of stressors and if healthcare workers, and their families, recognize the signs of stress within themselves and their colleagues.

Healthcare professionals desperately seek adequate resources for clinical stress, when they feel comfortable enough to discuss they are affected. Most of these individuals claim the culture does not afford the opportunity to admit to emotional stress without negative feedback. This is a learned behavior, passed down from generation to generation within the industry. Healthcare organizations' primary focus is patient care and satisfaction. Across the board, organizations and individual leaders are inadequately trained to recognize emotional strain, staff deal with daily. Healthcare professionals are unique due to constant exposure to human tragedy. The necessary ability to compartmentalize these events to be able to function in a professional role creates a conflict within caregivers to not see the personal toll it takes on them. A call to action is necessary to wake up healthcare workers to be able to realize it is OK to say, "I'm Not OK".