COLUMBUS, Ohio — In what’s been a tough year for healthcare workers. Among nursing shortages and a global pandemic, nurses in Columbus are seeing an increase in trauma patients.
Nathan “N8” Royster is one of those nurses.
He works at OSU Wexner Medical Center and takes care of trauma patients, often victims of gun violence, every night.
He’s experienced the city’s increase in violence firsthand.
“These people are coming in, not just one a night, but sometimes three or four gunshot victims, and it leads to a lot of, like, fatigue,” said Royster.
Nate said it’s not just nursing staff shortages that cause that fatigue, but the emotional toll it takes seeing the increased violence in the city on top of a pandemic.
“It’s a little traumatizing after a while,” he said.
“You see these young people, especially ones that look like me, and there’s a feeling of defeat when they have so many injuries that there’s just nothing we can do.”
The Ohio Nurses Association said Nate is not alone.
According to the association, many nurses often feel guilt and shame or like they didn’t do enough for their patients in a phenomenon called “moral injury.”
“They see things that you can’t even imagine,” said Joyce Fitzpatrick, a professor at Case Western Reserve University’s nursing school.
She and other researchers from Ohio State and the University of Cincinnati’s nursing schools are looking into the extent of moral injury in nurses.
“The nurses have to be resilient,” Fitzpatrick said.
“They talk to other nurses but it’s difficult to talk to family members and friends about the experiences they have.”
Fitzpatrick and her colleagues are trying to connect nurses with each other to talk through the violence so they can bond and support one another.
She hopes that one day her research will help people see the value of nursing.
Royster agrees.
“My hope is that we as nurses can help empower people, and let them know this isn’t just like, one bullet hitting somebody and that person dies, there is a lot more trauma that comes with that,” said Royster.
Professor Fitzpatrick and her colleagues from OSU and the University of Cincinnati plan on making an announcement about their research on nursing and moral injury Friday afternoon.