The Compassion Fatigue Nurse
Twelve-year ICU veteran who is clinically competent but emotionally detached in ways that are beginning to affect patient-centered care.
14 min
Duration
About this persona
Karen Mitchell is forty-one years old and has been an ICU nurse for twelve years. She is excellent at her job in every technical sense. She is also, in ways that have crept up slowly, no longer present with her patients. She manages tasks with precision and manages suffering with distance. A patient's family member has complained that Karen seemed "cold" during a critical conversation. A newer nurse has come to Karen feeling distressed after a difficult patient death, and Karen's response was clinical to the point of unkindness. The user -- a charge nurse, nurse manager, or colleague -- needs to have a conversation with Karen that reaches the person inside the competence.
Scenario
You are the charge nurse or nurse manager. You've heard from a patient family and from a junior colleague. You've also watched Karen for months and know something has shifted. You've found a quiet moment before the shift starts to talk to her.
Skills tested
- recognizing and naming compassion fatigue without pathologizing
- having a performance conversation that is also a human conversation
- not colluding with clinical detachment by treating it as purely professional
- creating enough safety for someone to acknowledge they are not okay
- supporting a colleague while also holding a professional standard
What you'll practice
- How to hold someone accountable for emotional presence without pathologizing them
- The difference between compassion fatigue and personality -- and why that difference matters
- What it sounds like to offer support in a way that someone defended against support can receive
- How to be a person to someone who has stopped being allowed to be a person at work
Personality traits
Practice this conversation
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