Sheela Naik chats with Cardinal George after he celebrated a Mass for caregivers at Cook County Hospital on Jan. 29. The church marks the ninth annual World Day of the Sick on Feb. 11. Catholic New World / Sandy Bertog

by Mary Claire Gart
ASSISTANT EDITOR

As the Universal Church prepared to mark the annual World Day of the Sick on Feb. 11, Pope John Paul II released a message calling on medical and nursing professionals “to learn from Christ, the physician of souls and bodies, to be authentic Good Samaritans towards their brothers and sisters.”

While most health care workers definitely strive for that, some would admit to “compassion fatigue.”

To help counteract such burn-out, 37 nurses, chaplains and other professionals gathered recently at the Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House in Barrington for a workshop titled “I Joined the Nursing Profession to be Compassionate, But …”

Among the areas they explored were the need for constant re-commitment, for spiritual and physical refreshment and, most important for the future, the need for more nursing recruits. They also noted the effects of recent hospital mergers and changes in health care plans on their jobs.

“It’s more stressful,” said nurse Vicky Taylor. “Patients are sicker when they are admitted and their stays are shorter. More responsibility falls on the nurses.”

To deal with these changes, Taylor said nurses have to re-commit themselves to their work over and over again—like a couple renewing their marriage vows. “It’s not a decision you make just once, but everyday.”

Taylor, who has worked for 20 years in a bone marrow transplant unit, admits that if one doesn’t like a patient when they first arrive, it can be “a long six weeks.”

But, as a former patient herself, she realizes that “you never forget a good nurse.”

“Good nursing can have a ripple effect,” she said, “without us ever knowing how far it spreads.”

Another 20-year veteran of nursing, Renae McGovern, spoke about dealing with “compassion fatigue.”

Since nurses—like social workers or police—are exposed to so much of the dark side of life, McGovern said it’s necessary “to come up with your own mission statement, to maintain boundaries and set limits for your own physical and mental health.”

“If we’re supposed to be the hands and feet of Christ for others,” she said, “we have to let others be that for us sometimes.

“Nurses are so used to being caregivers, our own identity gets lost in it,” she said. “Too often a nurse won’t bother with things like getting a massage or a manicure.”

As for spiritual refreshment, McGovern said she feels better if she gets to Mass two or three times a week instead of just Sundays.

Both Taylor and McGovern are concerned about the future of their profession.

“The average age of nurses today is 44 or 45,” said Taylor. “There aren’t that many younger nurses.”

Said McGovern, “We’re getting older and slower than we used to be. We wonder who will take care of us.”