Who's caring for the care givers--a nursing dilemma

With our hospital system generally in crisis, exemplified by problems of access, rapid patient turnover and increasing acuity, one of the obvious first breaking points will be with those closest to the patient--our nurses. Nurses are experiencing increasing stress and burnout, which leads to disillusionment, turnover and attrition. The effect these problems have in enrollment in the care professions, especially nursing, is obvious now with lower enrollment and a general apathy toward the profession. Nurses view themselves as the low person on the totem pole of clinical professions, an image which must be improved if people are to choose nursing as their career.