This is what pretty much every COVID ICU patient room looks like.

At the larger academic centers, where nurses typically have no more than 2 of these super sick patients at one time, there are 20+ ICU nurses who are caring for 3 of these patients at a time.

For non-medical https://twitter.com/steph_icurn/status/1345061762769498113

folks, that is against the law under non-pandemic conditions in many states because it is considered by most to be unsafe. But we are doing it now because there is no choice. There are not enough nurses.

Taking care of these patients is WILDLY COMPLEX. Nurses deal with

all of this, seamlessly, perfectly, and with total dedication.

What is my point?

These patients are wildly sick and wildly complex and often are maxed out on life support measures for weeks to months, if they survive that long.

Big academic hospitals have 50-100 of these

patients in their ICUs right now. They have docs and nurses who are new to medicine or new to ICU care helping. They are overwhelmed but they are still doing everything they can to take care of these patients. Doing this safely for three patients at a time is an impossible task

yet our ICU nurses are doing this EVERY SHIFT FOR WEEKS TO MONTHS WITH NO BREAK.

So yeah, what is my ultimate point?

WE DO NOT DESERVE NURSES.

When many of these folks leave the bedside, now and at the end of the pandemic, our healthcare system will be gutted.

We will be lost without the nurses who know how to take care of the most critically ill and complex patients most of us have ever seen in our careers, aside from patients fresh out from heart surgery.

We do not deserve these folks. They are the best and the

brightest that American medicine has to offer. They have every right and it is completely understandable that they are walking away from their jobs. They are spent. They have poured out their cups for months and have nothing left to give. No human can be expected to sustain

what they have endured for a year. That is not a reasonable expectation.

The nurses I have the honor of working w every day are brilliant, experienced, insightful, compassionate, driven, and kind. They have welcomed me into a new and beyond overwhelming clinical scenario with

kindness and respect. They have been patient as I’ve learned the ropes of a new set of rules, on many levels. New disease process, new hospital, new EMR, new politics, new faces. They welcomed me and showed me how it’s done. They gave me grace. And they did all of it while caring

for themselves, their families, and two to three of the sickest patients I’ve ever seen outside of the cardiothoracic ICU.

If you have nurses in your bubble, give them a hug and give them a break. If you have nurses in your circle of family or friends, text or call them and

show them some love and support.

Especially ICU nurses, who are quite literally the life raft keeping this country afloat and alive.

We do not deserve nurses.

Fin.