FORTIFYING Nurse Well-Being , Self-Care , Leadership , and Resilience
By Robert Rosseter and Joan Stanley
Today ’ s nurse must be prepared to navigate through a complex and rapidly changing healthcare system , which may at times lead to stress , exhaustion , and burnout . These feelings can be magnified in settings with insufficient staffing , high nurse turnover , and minimal transition-to-practice programs for new nurses entering the profession .
With this concern growing more critical , the Surgeon General issued an advisory , titled Addressing Health Worker Burnout ( U . S . Department of Health and Human
Services , 2022 ), to mobilize leaders and influencers to take action and focus on cultivating clinician well-being to ensure that “ health workers can thrive and better answer their call as healers .” In response to this crisis , a transformative shift is unfolding on a national scale , moving beyond crisis intervention to actively champion the health and well-being of nurses and other healthcare professionals .
In the academic arena , significant efforts are underway to better prepare nurses to practice safely across care settings with the skills needed to elevate well-being in self and others . Equally important is the need to develop nurses as leaders who are able to role model healthy behaviors and promote well-being initiatives at all levels within an organization . Developing nurses with skills in four key areas — that is , well-being , selfcare , resilience , and leadership — has become a top priority for academic nursing leaders working to prepare the next generation of entry-level and advanced-practice nurses for professional practice .
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