Recently a doctors said she couldn’t believe how few of her colleagues had a N95 despite caring for COVID+ patients for 8 months. Many docs have never been in a room. Then she looked me right in the eye & said “I’m sorry. Nurses deserve so much more than what you’re getting.”

I love our physicians. I appreciate the preservation of PPE. But it’s also absolutely wild to me that 99% of the physical care of these intensely ill, critically unstable patients is by nursing & RT staff. All of the physical assessments. All monitoring for changes. It’s a lot.

And it’s not that doctors provide physical cares much in the ICU even pre-COVID but it’s amplified right now. There is no “quick pop in” to a COVID room. It makes sense to ask the nurse. But it also requires really GOOD, observant, detailed, experienced nurses to do it all well.

There aren’t enough experienced critical care nurses - even before COVID but especially now. ICU COVID patients are the sickest of the sick, much more than a normal ICU patient. More labile. On more IV drips. On much more vent support. Not just any nurse can safely care for them.

So those of us trained to care for this sick of a patient feel an even bigger responsibility to stick it out, keep showing up for them, use our training & our skills to help. But it’s so much responsibility & so much pressure. And still we’re not believed. It’s demoralizing.

Imagine showing up to an exhausting job, running full speed for 12+ hours, always short staffed, seeing endless suffering & death...only to read comments that it’s all a lie. See friends & family gathering for holidays. See people refuse masks. It’s a blatant slap in the face.