 Hi guys! So I wanted to do a video on a topic that was sent by one of my Instagram followers and he asked, how do you deal with difficult patient deaths? And being an ICU nurse, we deal with a lot of death. It just is part of the job. Sometimes the deaths are planned, so to speak, not planned. That sounds really, that sounds actually like murder. No, not like that at all. Planned as in like family is more prepared that they're coming or the patient's more prepared that it's coming and sometimes they're totally unexpected. Sometimes the deaths are very peaceful, sometimes they're traumatic and that really affects the nurse a lot. And so I wanted to talk about kind of how to deal with some of those more difficult deaths because most of the time in the ICU when you have a patient pass away, even though it's very sad, the family is, I don't want to say somewhat ready for it, but we've kind of prepared the family that this is coming and they make the decision to put the patient on comfort care measures and we would maybe take the breathing tube out, stop every like all the drips and give the medications and let them pass peacefully. And sometimes patients pass within a couple minutes, sometimes a couple hours, sometimes it's a couple days. It just really depends on the patient scenario. But there are those deaths that are very difficult and maybe traumatic or just that kind of stand out. And without like getting into too many details, most of the deaths like I said are pretty peaceful in the ICU. But every once in a while, like maybe someone will code or you've got a family that is very, very emotional. And I'm not saying that in a mean way, but sometimes maybe it's to a point where they're screaming or yelling or and that can kind of be difficult on the nurse just as far as like how you perceive it or how you feel about it when you're trying to take care of this patient. So I've seen some traumatic deaths. I've seen some patients that were really young die during codes or maybe they have blood so much that they've literally like blood out. We cannot get enough blood or cannot give enough fluids, cannot put on enough pressures to where they just end up passing away because it's so severe. There's nothing that we can do about it or like we've been trying and nothing is working. So I've seen some pretty gruesome deaths and it can be very hard on the nurse to process that. I feel like it's one of those things that you don't realize what you're seeing until you go home and you're like holy shit. Like that was that was a lot and it takes a while to process it. So my best advice and this advice applies to any time you are seeing something difficult or traumatic, gruesome, sad, whatever in the ICU or whatever nursing world is you really have to let yourself process the event and talk about it in debrief and talk about it with your co-workers. If you've got a trusted family member or friend, obviously you need to be careful with HIPAA and all that stuff. But really sometimes for me like I go home and I just I just talked to my husband about what I saw during that day or what I did and just like me venting to him about everything it just makes me feel better or I talked to like my co-workers or fellow nurses, physicians, whatever we kind of talk about the situation. A lot of nurses sometimes in the moment we may be joking not joking that sounds bad not like you're going to be like joking in front of a patient or family member but we use humor a lot to kind of cope or sometimes they'll be like yeah we're fine like that was in in your head or like that was terrible but on the outside we're like portraying this like everything's okay image and I think that can leave a lot of nurses to feel like they're alone like should I should I not be feeling sad should I not be crying should I not feel angry should I not feel anxiety over the situation because the people around me are able to just pop back into their normal routine and laugh and joke and just act like nothing happened and just know that that's a coping mechanism for many nurses and yes there are some nurses that are totally numb to it and they can just like blow it off and be fine but most nurses on different levels but you it affects you in some way whether you let it affect you right then and there in the moment or it affects you that night when you get home from your shift or it affects you months down the road years down the road there everyone it affects everyone um and so it's just really important to process it and have a good healthy outlet I always say like have that healthy life balance you whether you work out like to cook clean um whatever you like to do take naps like make sure you're doing those things because it's just it can be a lot and if it's getting to a point where it's like really mentally affecting you then it's it's time to maybe talk to your manager maybe talk to a therapist maybe someone a medical professional who can help in these instances because it's a lot being a nurse is hard you see a lot of hard things um so that's my advice on how to deal with difficult patient deaths um because at some point in your nursing career you may or may not deal with this and it can be very very emotionally tough on you um but know that that's normal that's like that's all your nurses because you you feel still you're still a compassionate human being anyways sorry such a bummer of a topic but I thought it was a great question so thank you guys for watching this video make sure you give a thumbs up let me know in the comments below have you ever dealt with a gruesome death or a difficult patient death how was it for you what did you do to cope with it and um how did you process it so thank you guys for watching and I'll see you in my next video bye