7/30/2021 excerpt taken from Power: Grace Under Pressure by Marie Manthey

Learning to react without assuming personal responsibility for a system failure will greatly diminish the sense of frustration currently endemic in hospital nursing. Detaching from the failure without abandoning the patient may require some creative imagination, but, in the long run, the effort is well worth it.

Clarify your boundaries and be compassionate. Then take creative action to ameliorate the situation. These are healthy responses. Through them you assert your personal power and strengthen your professional presence.

Failure to experience enacting your power as a nurse presents as great a problem in the healthcare system as do any other forms of the system failure.

We need to own our power. Power to do what? Power to take care of ourselves. That is our first responsibility in life and in work.