Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hi, See You Now listeners. I'm Rebecca McEnroy, executive producer for See You Now. Over the past five years, we've had the honor of speaking with hundreds of nurses and nurse allies, people who are transforming healthcare with their creativity, courage, and innovation. As we look ahead to the next five years, we're thinking deeply about how to meet your changing needs and make the most of the incredible library of stories we've built together.
So this summer, we're excited to introduce something new, See You Now Insights. Each week, we'll bring you a short, powerful moment from one of our many conversations, an idea that sparked change, a breakthrough discovery, or a moment that moved us. These bite-sized episodes are designed to fit into your life, whether it's your commute, a quick break, or a pause in your day.
We hope these curated insights inspire you, surprise you, and remind you why nursing is at the heart of healthcare. Subscribe to See You Now wherever you get podcasts and join us for insights this summer.
June is National Safety Month, and in our extensive conversations with nurses, we've learned a lot about what it really takes to create safe environments in healthcare, and not just for patients, but for the workforce, for nurses. And many of those lessons came into sharp focus during COVID. Today's insight comes from Episode 18, Mental Health Pandemic.
In it, nurse scientist Judy Davidson outlines practical proven strategies to support nurses' mental health and emotional well-being, from building resiliency training into nursing education to creating anonymous, proactive mental health screening programs. She reminds us that protecting nurses' mental health isn't optional, it's essential. And small steps like a pause, a check-in, or an email can save lives.
Well, we need to build resiliency training into the education and curriculum. My dear friend and colleague, Dr. Bernadette Melnick, has developed a cognitive-based therapy skills building program that works to improve resiliency amongst nurses. She's tested it in randomized controlled trial. It decreases anxiety, depression, and suicidality.
And we know that these skills will work, so we have to commit to what's important and make sure that nurses have these skills. Jonathan Bartel developed this pause and it was brilliant. You get 45 seconds after a patient's death to recoup and honor that person in their death, in their life, and everything about that experience. But isn't it sad that we think it's a win when we get 45 seconds?
So I think we need to reframe our leadership training so that charge nurses give real breaks to people after a death. That somebody, your buddy, will probably talk to you and give you a little immediate debriefing. If you have peer supporters in the unit, they would be looking out for somebody that had a moment like that and tap them out to give them time to talk about it before they went on to the next task.
You have time to do what you make time to do. Priorities are important. We have to make the mental health of the workforce a priority and of importance, just as important as getting a patient out of the ED. Because if we don't maintain our resiliency, we won't be strong enough to keep caring. The hope is, the good part is, there are things we can do. That's the good part. If
If we just take action. We just hired two more therapists to bolster our program to be able to brace for what we're going to find when we screen nurses now. Anyone can start one of these training programs. It only costs a couple thousand dollars to put it together, and that's a drop in the bucket to a life of a nurse. Contact the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention, info at AFSP.org.
and you talk to them about setting up a screening program. They'll help you get it all encrypted so that the nurses can feel totally safe disclosing their mental health issues.
This is how simple it is. A simple email saves lives. The chief nurse officer sends out an email. You're encouraged to do this as a matter of self-care. When you go on to do the screening, it goes through encryption to the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention. Those that screen moderate or high risk are funneled back to therapists that are internal to the organization. They start a conversation through the computer. They don't know who you are. You don't know who they are.
You can break your anonymity at any point in the process, or you can keep it all the way to being referred to a doctor. And it works. And it works because it's proactive. It's a push. We don't wait for people to say, I need help.
You need to couple a program like that with boots on the ground looking out for each other. Everybody feeling okay to approach somebody who's under extreme stress and saying, "You know, I care about you. Looks like you're having a rough day. You want to talk about it?"
That's actually a suicide prevention technique. Just recognizing somebody that's under stress and so they don't feel alone is a suicide prevention technique. And we can all do that with no money. We just have to start watching out for each other. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org to connect with a trained crisis counselor.
Judy Davidson is a nurse scientist at UC San Diego School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry. That was from episode 18, Mental Health Pandemic. Be sure to share this insight with your team, your friends and colleagues, your nurse leaders and healthcare systems, and find the full episode wherever you get podcasts. I'm Rebecca McEnroy. Thanks for listening.