Nurses’ trauma and the two fronts of the war against COVID-19

As COVID-19 patients are isolated in hospital rooms trying to stay alive, nurses are the ones serving every role, from caretaker to chaplain to stand-in loved one. And when those patients die, nurses take that pain of loss upon themselves. The trauma is heaping up. But it doesn’t have to be this way, says Candace Burton, an associate professor of nursing at UCI who is conducting a study about nurses’ experiences during the pandemic by interviewing them. Nurses are confronting both a deadly disease and a culture that refuses to take it seriously. In this episode of the UCI Podcast, Professor Burton shares what nurses are telling her, why reforms in the nursing profession are needed, and how everyone can help prevent more of this trauma.