Dealing with exhaustion
Annapolis Valley workshops helping nurses cope with burnout
Day in and day out, nurses see the best and the worst of humanity.
They're there to witness births, deaths, miraculous recoveries, and life-altering diagnoses. They're also there to comfort grieving families and people reeling from the sudden loss of a loved one.
Without realizing it, this can add up and take a toll on their mental health.
“I think a lot of the times nurses know something's wrong with them, but they don't really know what it is,” said Jennifer Kirk, of Dragonfly Meadows.
And when a person's identity is built around caring
for others, putting themself first is a foreign concept, she added.
“Nurses are trained not to say no, and nurses are trained to give everything,” said Kirk, who is a registered nurse with 17 years of experience.
Through Dragonfly Meadows, Kirk is helping nurses gain a better understanding of what may be affecting them.
“I kind of educate nurses on what burnout is. The differential, I guess, between burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress injury. We talk a lot about boundaries, how to say no,” she said.
Kirk, who also works in the recovery room at Valley Regional Hospital, helps those within the nursing profession through hosting equine facilitated learning workshops. Groups of five to six nurses interact with Kirk's horses, Tinker and Annie, learn about the various types of issues that may be affecting them and develop coping strategies.
“It's very intimate. It's very safe for everybody to talk about their experiences — like a lot of nurses don't realize how much being a nurse has impacted them,” said Kirk.
With the state of today’s health-care system, Kirk says it’s little wonder why so many nurses are struggling with burnout, compassion fatigue, moral injury, and a poor worklife balance.
“There’s a lot of programs that work with police and fire
neglected and EMS, and nurses are or just not thought of. Nurses are not considered first responders in the traditional sense,” said Kirk.
Yet, nurses witness much of the same trauma.
“I can tell you as a former emergency room nurse, I’ve taken care of patients that were dropped off at the doors with
severely gunshot wounds, stabbed, beaten, amongst other things,” Kirk said.
“Nurses are exposed to lots of trauma. The nurses that work on the floors — the surgical floors, ICU, medical wards — they witness suffering on a daily basis.”
Kirk said seeing a patient’s condition improve so that they can leave the hospital is rewarding, but, there’s many people who never get to leave, “so you’re dealing with the
patient constant suffering” of the and the family.
“The thing that nurses don’t realize is how seeing this every day affects you.”
HOW DRAGONFLY MEADOWS BEGAN
Kirk, who grew up in South Berwick, was living in Alberta when she first took the step to get help. She was struggling, working demanding 12-hour
compassion shifts and experiencing fatigue.
“I ended up getting my first horse when I turned 40 and this introduced me to a whole different realm of being, I guess you could say,” said Kirk, who had been nursing for about nine years at the time.
In 2012, she took her first workshop in equine facilitated learning and said she wanted to find a way to help fellow nurses better understand and manage the every day stressors they experience.
When she later read a magazine article about compassion fatigue, she said everything clicked.
She began offering workshops for nurses in 2014 and became a certified equine learning professional through PRO-EFW Canada.
In 2017, she relocated back
husband, to Nova Scotia with her Scott Ward, who had grown up in Coldbrook. They live in Halls Harbour.
“I was really kind of naive. I was thinking the issues that are in Alberta can’t be as bad as the issues are here and then I got here and it’s much worse,” said Kirk.
worldwide
She said nurses seem to be facing the same challenges — they are overworked, frequently miss breaks, and have vacation days denied due to staffing issues.
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www.dragonflymeadows.ca
“Right now, with the pandemic, nurses are working extremely short-staffed. On some units, there are supposed to be five nurses and there’s two; on some units, there are supposed to be 13 or 14 and there’s six or seven. Yet the work has to get done,” she said.
“Nurses are missing their breaks; nurses are working overtime. Redeployment has been really hard on nurses.”
Kirk said if nurses frequently find themselves becoming tired and cranky before coming on shift, it may be an indicator that something is wrong.
NEGLECTING ONESELF
“I feel like as nurses, we’re so busy all the time providing care to others — whether it’s our patients, our patients’ families, our own families — that we do tend to neglect ourselves and kind of ignore that selfcare piece,” said Tracey Tooke, a clinical nurse educator at the Valley Regional Hospital who also does front-line shifts in the emergency department.
Tooke participated in one of Kirk’s first workshops in the Annapolis Valley.
“At the time, I was feeling really stressed, just really drained. I had lost that zest that I used to have for nursing.”
Tooke said she didn’t know what to expect from the workshop beforehand. She said there was time for selfreflection and interaction with the horses; a chance to just be in the moment.
“I felt like it was a really safe space for me to be vulnerable emotionally. Which we don’t do,” said Tooke.
“My background is in critical care and emergency and we’re really always trying to be strong for the patients, for the families,” she said.
“You’re dealing with really difficult situations and dealing with people on the worst day of their life, often. It’s really kind of heavy.”
As people look to nurses for comfort, compassion and reassurance, Tooke said regardless of how they may be feeling, they wear a “façade that you’re strong and everything is OK.”
After taking the workshop, Tooke said she felt reenergized.
“I feel like now, more than ever, it would be fantastic for nurses to be taking the workshop. … We’re two years into this pandemic. People are tired. Nurses are tired. Health-care
workers are all exhausted,” Tooke said.
She said she’s proud of how the nurses at Valley Regional and Soldier’s Memorial hospitals pulled together during the pandemic and strongly encourages all nurses to carve out some time for themselves.
“We focus so much on the care of our patients and our communities that we need to sometimes be reminded that we do need to take care of ourselves.”
Kirk said the workshop examines boundaries and saying no. The participants also take part in mindfulness and set goals.
“A lot of nurses think they’re burnt out, but it’s really something else,” said Kirk.
“I’ve had nurses attend my workshops that have gone on and been diagnosed with PTSD and had proper treatment,” she said.
“Nurses, when they go see their family doctor about
what’s going on and how they’re feeling, they’re generally diagnosed with anxiety and depression and that’s not really what it is.”
Kirk said she’s especially worried about the young professionals just entering the field.
“I really fear for the new
profession nurses coming in to the because … they’re coming in at a really hard time and
I just don’t know how well they’re going to cope,” said Kirk.
“You feel terrible at the end of the day when you can’t do all the things that you’re supposed to do as a nurse and provide proper care,” she said.
“There’s a lot of feelings of guilt and shame and incompetence. Nurses tend to be really hard on themselves when they know they’re not doing the best job that they can do.”
Through her workshops, Kirk hopes to empower nurses and let them know they are doing a good job and provide them with tools to better cope with the stresses of the job. She recommends changing your mindset to see the positives rather than the negatives.
“It takes a lot of practice to kind of change how you’re looking at things,” said Kirk. And while it’s difficult to ask
encourages for help, she actively nurses to do so, even if it’s just saying, “go easy on me; this has been a really hard day.”
UPCOMING CLINICS
Kirk offers private workshops as well as two to three special clinics per year. Her upcoming clinic in Grand Pre on May 19 is already sold-out. She also has ones planned for July 21 and Oct. 6.
Kirk said aside from nurses,
continuing she also welcomes care assistants (CCA) and others within the caring professions, like respiratory therapists and social workers.