Nurses deserve a chance to succeed in hard environments.

I have a passion for teaching new nurses. Throughout my years in ER and critical care, I have worked hard to help newer staff break down difficult shifts, understand what they experienced, and decide how to move forward. I want the nurses I work with to know they can come to me and we will work through it together.

When I began nursing, my wife had already worked in critical care for six years. I had someone I trusted waiting at home who understood the clinical environment and could help me break down a hard shift. That support was immensely important. I am not sure I would have known how to begin those conversations with coworkers I had only recently met.

As a preceptor, I came to understand the other side of the problem. Some days there simply is not time to unpack a fast-paced shift before everyone leaves. The nurse and preceptor are exhausted. The educator may already be gone. I may not see that nurse again for several days.

Meanwhile, the experience can become buried beneath the next assignment, the next shift, and the next difficult day. I could not ignore that space between the hard shift and the support that might eventually follow.

No nurse should have to bury a difficult shift simply because the right person was not available when the shift ended.