Stop the Burn and Churn of Turnover and Burnout Through Resiliency Science

Several years ago, while sitting in a critical incident debriefing, I noted how little was understood about the impact of high-intensive exposure to the complexity of humanity. The incident debrief concerned a murder of one individual for their unborn baby. Both mother and infant died from the action of another. As the healthcare responders, we were dealing with the high emotional load of what we saw and how it impacted us. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of the word “resilience” is: “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, toughness … the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.” The definition implies that resilience is about maintaining or obtaining the original state before the need for resilience. Except, the human mind cannot forget traumatic moments nor accumulative stress. The human mind will continue to try to process it, and failure to address it will result in symptoms and behaviors associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and burnout. Secondary Trauma Surprisingly, researchers have further identified that secondary trauma has just as much an impact on individuals as it does to those who were directly impacted. Secondary trauma is experienced when an individual hears about the firsthand trauma, which results in stress and emotional duress even though they weren’t directly involved. Secondary trauma resembles PTSD in its symptoms, but is often unrecognized because the indiv...
Source: JEMS Special Topics - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Exclusive Articles Administration and Leadership Source Type: news