Book by Kali Micetich

Healthcare’s Hurdles

Kali Micetich

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Christine Weeks, who gave me more insight on this topic and inspired me to go more in-depth with this subject than I had planned. I would also like to dedicate this book to frontline workers during the pandemic who have worked so hard and may even have lost their lives.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all my friends who have reviewed my writing many times to make sure it was the best it can be and everyone in Design who has given me extra feedback on the layout and design elements of my book. I would also like to thank Freestyle Academy for teaching me how to use Adobe elements such as Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator which helped me put together this book.

8- Preface

Contents

11- Introduction

12- Chapter One: Mental Health

18- Chapter Two: Understaffing

22- Chapter Three: Burnout

26- Works Cited

28- About the Author

Preface When the Documentary unit was introduced, my mind immediately wandered to who I could interview and topics I could focus on. I thought about the pandemic right away, something the whole world had to live through but every individual experienced differently. From that, I knew I wanted to touch on certain stories that would highlight the good and the bad of the pandemic, and give us more information about the virus that changed our lives. This book deals with heavy topics, such as mental health issues including anxiety, depression, and suicide. Please read with caution.

This project was very stressful, but in the end, I am happy with the work I put into it. The runway for this project was shorter than I would have liked, and staying on top of my work was challenging. I was stuck with how to start my writing as well as how to design my pages for a long time, but after a lot of brainstorming and trial and error, I am happy with what I was able to produce. Writing and designing this book introduced us to Adobe InDesign, a desktop publishing page layout designing software, that would hold the paper that we wrote in our English class.

Writing is not my strong suit, and I knew this would be very challenging. After a lot of peer review and class discussions, I am more confident in my writing, and I am excited to see what the rest of my time at Freestyle will bring.

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Introduction You struggle to put on your latex gloves, the fifth pair you’ve put on that day. Before you leave the breakroom to help the next patient, you notice another ambulance pulling into the hospital: another COVID patient. You walk down the dimly-light hallway, reading about the next patient you are about to go in and help. COVID patient, pale skin, difficulty breathing. You’ve seen it many times before. You take one last look at your reflection in a window, making sure all your protective gear is in place. Taking a deep breath, you walk into their room, one you may not leave for a few hours.

This situation is from the view of one of the thousands of healthcare workers who braved hospitals during the pandemic; constantly treating the same virus by being in one room for hours to prevent transmissions. Not only were they tired and afraid, but they were hoping for it all to end.

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Chapter One 12

The rise of COVID caused all of us to put down what we were doing and go into isolation, making the world come to a halt. However, healthcare workers were hit the hardest. COVID-19 was a virus that devastated everyone, forcing the world to shut down, something we have not seen happen since the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, which only impacted a fraction of what COVID has done. H1N1 caused a pandemic that is now a regular human flu virus and continues to circulate seasonally worldwide (CDC). From toilet paper hoarding to quarantining, the COVID-19 has taken an immense toll on us all. In the midst of the pandemic, healthcare workers have had to step up with their responsibilities, which has had a significant impact on their mental health. We look into different perspectives of healthcare workers

and see how the pandemic affected them and the world around them.

Christine Weeks—a mom, nurse, and overall caretaker at heart— tells how difficult the pandemic was, and gives an insight into how many nurses had to change how they examined their patients. “We were locked down, but also my job could not close down,” she explains, “So I was still going to work full time, but everybody was home.”

Nurses were put at the front lines, putting themselves and their families at risk. On top of all that, they also had to take care of their own mental health, something that has been a tricky topic to discuss.

Doctors and nurses’ mental health has never been a common topic, as some healthcare workers feel the obligation to help others without worrying

about themselves. A recent study showed that more than 70% of health care workers in the country have symptoms of anxiety and depression, 38% have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and 15% have had recent thoughts of suicide or selfharm. (Chatterjee)

Being one of the only people during the pandemic who still got to go to work seemed nice at first since she was able to interact with others.

However, after a while, being able to work with others but not being able to

Mental Health

During COVID, these statistics changed. Interacting with others during the pandemic was difficult, and many had to take special precautions to be able to care for others. “I would be in a room sometimes with COVID patients for hours, doing all the stuff that I needed to do,” Weeks explained, “you wanted to get in there, gown up and then not leave until you finished everything you needed to do for a long period of time.” This made caring for patients much more grueling; the extra steps healthcare workers had to take before entering a room took more time, planning, and mental strain to be able to help someone.

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“For a long time... we forgot what our coworkers look like, you know, under the mask I mean.”

-Christine Weeks 14

reach out to them seemed like they were being teased. “For a long time…we forgot what our coworkers looked like, you know, under the mask I mean.” (C. Weeks). When asked if work has increased more since the pandemic, Weeks responds, “​​Oh, more. Way more.”

Many healthcare workers had to watch patients die alone and had to provide their only comfort and support in their last moments before death. This greatly impacted their mental health, and Michael Odell’s story helps us understand what some physicians had to go through. Odell was a nurse at Stanford, who knew that COVID was going to impact him. He shares via Facebook how he “feels for them as deep as human empathy can allow” (qtd. In Joseph) and how he was dreading the long-term effects of this pandemic. One day in January, Odell went to his shift at work and never returned. Two days later, they found his body. After investigating and looking at the evidence, the cause of his death pointed to suicide (Chatterjee). This affected health care

workers everywhere and started a conversation about how difficult it is to care for yourself when your job is to care for others. Even before COVID-19, physicians had the highest suicide rate among every profession, and nurses had higher suicide rates than the general population, (Flores) and were still rarely spoken about.

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Chapter Two 18

Nurses did not solely have to take care of their mental health, but also their physical well-being.

“I would tell people to take care of your body…the job is physically demanding,” said Weeks, when sharing about how many healthcare workers experience work-related injuries. On March 26th, 2020, Sydni Lane, a nurse who uses her voice via Instagram, posted a photo of her with her face red, raw, and sore from all the protective gear she has to wear.

In her caption, she mentions how clueless and helpless she feels due to the pandemic, even after 4 years of being an ER nurse. “My face hurts after wearing an N95 for 13 hours, which happens to be the same N95 I wore yesterday for 12.5 hours, and the same one from all last week.”

Her story is powerful and started a discussion about how even after a few weeks into lockdown, healthcare

workers were already burnt out, tired, and lacking clean protective gear.

The pandemic not only made it even harder for physicians to take care of themselves but also had to work harder due to nurses quitting or retiring. “A lot of the older nurses that could retire did retire,” says Weeks. This unfortunately caused lots of understaffing that impacted many people. In health care alone, 534,000 people left their jobs in August (Bernstein). Many hospitals had to keep hiring people to fill as many spots as they could, Weeks describes how they started staying less and less, and still had to constantly work short-staffed.

Lydia Weeks, Christine’s daughter and my best friend, explains how tiring the job was for her mom: “She picked up extra shifts, had to

wear layers and layers of protection from the virus, and wasn’t allowed to eat with any of her friends and peers that were her support system,” Lydia

says, “it definitely was more stressful and overwhelming but she hid it well from the family” (L. Weeks).

Under staffing 19

Nurses are historically overworked and were front-line workers during the pandemic, something that is still occurring today and will greatly impact our future. They are essential workers, not only during a time of crisis. It is a physically and mentally demanding job and takes a lot of work to care for yourself and others. Healthcare workers constantly have to set boundaries for themselves, making sure they don’t get overworked and burnt out, even before the pandemic and because many nurses left their job when the pandemic hit, they had

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to make sure they took care of themselves even more.

“I worked around a lot of nurses that were suffering from burnout where they just didn’t want to be nurses anymore. And I was like, why would I want to be a nurse? Only to suffer from burnout like two years later?” (C. Weeks) I asked Weeks what made her want to be a nurse if she knew about the possible mental consequences, she told me how a lot of her family members were nurses. “I felt like it was just something that I was supposed to do” (C. Weeks).

“...why would I want to be a nurse? Only to suffer from burnout two weeks later?”

-Christine Weeks

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Chapter Three 22

Nurses are historically overworked and were front-line workers during the pandemic, something that is still occurring today and will greatly impact our future. They are essential workers, not only during a time of crisis. It is a physically and mentally demanding job and takes a lot of work to care for yourself and others. Healthcare workers constantly have to set boundaries for themselves, making sure they don’t get overworked and burnt out, even before the pandemic.

And because many nurses left their job when the pandemic hit, they had to make sure they took care of themselves even more.

Only to suffer from burnout like two years later?” (C. Weeks) When we look to see how some were able to cope with the pandemic, we turn to a short story infographic

by Grace Farris, who draws comics to help her unwind from her strenuous job. Farris asked other physicians to describe how they are working through this stress and took their responses to create an engaging comic on how they feel. “This was the first time I had felt my profession was in jeopardy,” said Dr. Lucie Mitchell, “We were expendable… and my creative work allowed me to escape the anxiety and loss felt throughout the pandemic.”

“I worked around a lot of nurses that were suffering from Although we still have a long burnout where they just didn’t want time to go until the pandemic is to be nurses anymore. And I was considered “over,” this exposes a like, why would I want to be a nurse? long-standing issue about what

Burnout

healthcare workers have to go through. Even though COVID negatively impacted many, it helped people create an opportunity for change, and the stories we touched on help us see the current situation.

“The hospitals need nurses in order to function, in order to take care of all these patients,” C. Weeks shares, “from a labor perspective, I’m hoping that it changes for the better.” Our awareness has been shifted, and we now understand how essential it is to protect our mental health, even when we come out of the pandemic.

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Works Cited Bernstein, Lenny. “As COVID Persists, Nurses Are Leaving Staff Jobs - and Tripling Their Salaries as Travelers.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 6 Dec. 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/COVID-travel-nurses/2021/12/05/550b15fc -4c71-11ec-a1b9-9f12bd39487a_story.html.

Chatterjee, Rhitu. “A Nurse’s Death Raises the Alarm about the Profession’s Mental Health Crisis.” NPR, NPR, 31 Mar. 2022, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/03/31/1088672446/a-nurses-deat h-raises-the-alarm-about-the-professions-mental-health-crisis.

Farris, Grace. “Why Your Doctor May Be Quilting and Your Nurse May Have a Podcast.”

NPR, NPR, 29 Dec. 2021, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/29/1065992396/health-care-workersburnout-coping.

Flores, Alissa. “Pandemic Burnout: The Toll of COVID-19 on Health Care Workers and Children.” Physicians for Human Rights, 21 May 2021, https://phr.org/our-work/resources/pandemic-burnout-the-toll-of-COVID-19-on-healt h-care-workers-and-children/?CID=701f40000018pCMAAY&ms=FY20_SEM _GoogleGrant&gclid=CjwKCAjwloCSBhAeEiwA3hVo_WmiROeNMrWv9dLf OfHjLS3mRyep6iANUQz5jiY_z1nWxyxJ4R-UqhoC_d8QAvD_BwE. Joseph, Andrew, et al. “‘I Fear the Long-Term Effects’: Before His Death, a Nurse Warned of the Pandemic’s Toll on Health Care Workers.” STAT, 23 Mar. 2022, https://www.statnews.com/2022/03/23/nurse-warned-of-pandemic-mental-toll-health-

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workers/.

Lane, Sydni (@sydvic1ous). 2020. “I broke down and cried today. I cried of exhaustion, of defeat. Because after 4 years of being an ER nurse, I suddenly feel like I know nothing…” Instagram photo, March 26, 2020. https://www.instagram.com/p/B-OGaGOn0D1/ “Summary of Progress since 2009.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 6 June 2019, https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/h1n1-summary.htm.

Weeks, Lydia. Personal interview. 20 April 2022.

Weeks, Christine. Personal interview. 21 March 2022.

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About the Author Kali Micetich is a Junior at Mountain View High School and is studying Design at Freestyle Academy. Outside of school, Kali works at their dance studio, Dance Attack!, and also enjoys driving around town with their friends. One of their most recent hobbies has been filling a journal with as many scraps and drawings as possible, as well as reading, listening to music, and improving their writing skills. They are very excited to make this book, one of the first material items they have produced at Freestyle. After spending the summer being a C.I.T at URJ Camp Newman, Kali is very excited to see what their senior year will bring.

To see more of what they have done, scan the QR code to get linked to their Freestyle Academy website!

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