By Abdullah Alismail, PhD, RRT-NPS, FCCP
June 14, 2024 | VOLUME 2, ISSUE 2
Ever since I was a respiratory therapy student, all the way until my last day working at bedside before transitioning to academia, one of the most fun and exciting places to work was in high-intensity, fast-paced areas like an ICU or emergency room. I’ve always referred to us ICU clinicians as adrenaline junkies. However, this kind of excitement has its ups and downs.
One of the key reasons I became a respiratory therapist was because I knew I would be able to save lives and provide that breath of life to others. When a patient arrives at the emergency room short of breath and you can make a difference—nothing beats that.
However, I still remember the days when I felt mentally and emotionally exhausted after my long, 12-hour shifts. When I got home, I wouldn’t want to talk to anyone; I would just go out for a walk or run. This wouldn’t happen after every shift, but when it did, it was usually due to a specific incident or difficult case, losing a patient, or an increase in workload.
As clinicians working in high-stress areas, negative emotions can impact our mental health and can cause issues such as depression. Therefore, we try to hold any negative emotions in so we can take care of the next patient. Unfortunately, this gets worse when there’s a lack of communication or debrief with team members, or when we don’t feel empowered to ask a question or simply share a concern. Examples like this would increase my emotional exhaustion and cause the feeling of burnout. Thus, debrief and communication will be beneficial to prevent this.