Nurses are the people we turn to to take care of us when we're not well.

But nurses are often fatigued, emotionally and physically, in their workplaces. Burnout has been described as an epidemic among clinicians. One study estimated that 80 percent of ICU nurses are experiencing some form of burnout. And a study from the Colorado Nursing Center found that about 16 percent of nurses left their jobs in 2017. 

Tara Rynders, a nurse at Rose Medical Center and an interdisciplinary artist, decided to explore these issues through an immersive dance performance. With the support of an Arts in Society grant, she staged several performances in late 2018 that took audience members through the halls, rooms, and even the basement of the hospital. The performance considered everything from the piles paperwork to the emotional issues that arise when a loved one has died.

Rynders was recently nominated for the Colorado Nurses Foundation's Nightingale Award for this work, which she said is an indication that the hospital values this kind of work and that the nursing profession values telling stories like this. 

In this episode of The Checkup, Rynders talks about burnout and compassion fatigue in the nursing profession, what hospitals, policymakers, and nurses can do about it, and about how her own experiences as a patient, nurse, and artist combined in "First Do No Harm."

https://www.coloradohealthinstitute.org/podcast

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