Before You Go: Embracing the God-given Design of Human Finitude Among New Nurses
Sarah Templeton, DNP, FNP-C, Biola University, La Mirada, CA
The shortage of nurses is a global concern, further exacerbated by the high attrition of newly graduated nurses (NGN) who leave the profession during their first year of solo practice. Specifically in the United States (U.S.), 33% of NGNs leave the profession during their first year of practice. This rate of NGN attrition perpetuates the nursing shortage in the U.S., which negatively affects patient outcomes and contributes to burdensome healthcare finances.
Nurses are particularly vulnerable to burnout given their professional intersection with patient suffering. Evaluating burnout among nurses requires a systems approach. Researchers have identified several individual and organizational influences on nursing burnout, particularly among NGNs. For example, due to the current nursing shortage, NGNs are often overwhelmed by their workloads. When units are understaffed, NGNs may forgo breaks and have heavier and more complex patient assignments, all of which can contribute to the poorer health of the nurse. These types of demands often overlook or at least downplay normal human capacity.
NGNs experience psychological factors that also contribute to burnout. For example, some NGNs experience a high degree of stress, and anxiety can affect one’s ability to sleep and may exacerbate job-related physical and emotional exhaustion. When perspective is overshadowed by overtaxing one’s realistic limitations, defeat ensues, and an existential crisis can occur.
The healthcare system cannot handle further threats to patient safety and organizational stability. Perhaps it’s time to infuse the concept of human finitude into nursing training and adjust personal and organizational expectations to help mitigate burnout and attrition among NGNs. An appreciation of finitude could increase resilience among NGNs, foster healthy interdependence, and cultivate environments that encourage diligence and rest while respecting human limitations.
Why do humans, particularly nurses, have such difficulty acknowledging their finitude? NGNs are consistently pushing up against their limitations, seeking to overcome them, quickly reach the point of burnout, and opt out of their positions or nursing careers altogether. It's one thing to push yourself and slowly increase your abilities (whether mental, physical, etc). However, humans were never created to do everything, be everywhere, and know everything. They can and should grow. However, a healthy view of creaturely finitude must be honored.
Christian theology highlights the importance of working within human limitations that are rooted in faithful dependence on God and others. Within the creation narrative, God formed man and a helper to tend to creation. God delighted in his workmanship and called it very good. This purposeful design of faithful dependence means that limitations were part of God’s original plan for humanity and are not connected with one’s sin. Rather, God intends for humans to acknowledge their limitations, and depend on him and one another.
God-designed limitations are for human protection and restoration. As nurses enter their first year of solo practice, they may be required to push past their capacity in terms of limited knowledge and experience. Not all limitations are meant to confine humans, but finitude (i.e., need for rest, etc.) provides a guardrail to help humans discern what one person can healthily manage.
Finitude is not a liability. A faithful dependence on God and others was a key management strategy that Jesus used to cope with his human limitations. A healthy acknowledgment of weaknesses can lead to a fruitful dependence on God.
Finitude can be a protective factor against burnout. A healthy understanding of finitude permits humans to name unrealistic expectations as impossible and not be bound by them. A good question to ask oneself is what does faithfulness look like? Self-awareness is necessary to understand when one is pushing too hard against performance and productivity limitations.
Organizations training NGNs need to model behaviors consistent with accepting human finitude. Similarly, organizations that employ NGNs need to address the nursing shortage. Placing NGNs into a chaotic system with unrealistic workloads due to understaffed units is unfair. It behooves organizations to weigh the costs of additional preceptors to champion NGNs and employ relief nurses to ensure breaks and a more equitable distribution of patients.
These human resources (e.g., NGNs)are necessary to bridge the nursing shortage gap and to improve patient outcomes. Global healthcare systems will continue to lose these precious resources if NGNs are viewed as anything other than human.
Nurses are particularly vulnerable to burnout given their professional intersection with patient suffering. Evaluating burnout among nurses requires a systems approach. Researchers have identified several individual and organizational influences on nursing burnout, particularly among NGNs. For example, due to the current nursing shortage, NGNs are often overwhelmed by their workloads. When units are understaffed, NGNs may forgo breaks and have heavier and more complex patient assignments, all of which can contribute to the poorer health of the nurse. These types of demands often overlook or at least downplay normal human capacity.
NGNs experience psychological factors that also contribute to burnout. For example, some NGNs experience a high degree of stress, and anxiety can affect one’s ability to sleep and may exacerbate job-related physical and emotional exhaustion. When perspective is overshadowed by overtaxing one’s realistic limitations, defeat ensues, and an existential crisis can occur.
The healthcare system cannot handle further threats to patient safety and organizational stability. Perhaps it’s time to infuse the concept of human finitude into nursing training and adjust personal and organizational expectations to help mitigate burnout and attrition among NGNs. An appreciation of finitude could increase resilience among NGNs, foster healthy interdependence, and cultivate environments that encourage diligence and rest while respecting human limitations.
Why do humans, particularly nurses, have such difficulty acknowledging their finitude? NGNs are consistently pushing up against their limitations, seeking to overcome them, quickly reach the point of burnout, and opt out of their positions or nursing careers altogether. It's one thing to push yourself and slowly increase your abilities (whether mental, physical, etc). However, humans were never created to do everything, be everywhere, and know everything. They can and should grow. However, a healthy view of creaturely finitude must be honored.
Christian theology highlights the importance of working within human limitations that are rooted in faithful dependence on God and others. Within the creation narrative, God formed man and a helper to tend to creation. God delighted in his workmanship and called it very good. This purposeful design of faithful dependence means that limitations were part of God’s original plan for humanity and are not connected with one’s sin. Rather, God intends for humans to acknowledge their limitations, and depend on him and one another.
God-designed limitations are for human protection and restoration. As nurses enter their first year of solo practice, they may be required to push past their capacity in terms of limited knowledge and experience. Not all limitations are meant to confine humans, but finitude (i.e., need for rest, etc.) provides a guardrail to help humans discern what one person can healthily manage.
Finitude is not a liability. A faithful dependence on God and others was a key management strategy that Jesus used to cope with his human limitations. A healthy acknowledgment of weaknesses can lead to a fruitful dependence on God.
Finitude can be a protective factor against burnout. A healthy understanding of finitude permits humans to name unrealistic expectations as impossible and not be bound by them. A good question to ask oneself is what does faithfulness look like? Self-awareness is necessary to understand when one is pushing too hard against performance and productivity limitations.
Organizations training NGNs need to model behaviors consistent with accepting human finitude. Similarly, organizations that employ NGNs need to address the nursing shortage. Placing NGNs into a chaotic system with unrealistic workloads due to understaffed units is unfair. It behooves organizations to weigh the costs of additional preceptors to champion NGNs and employ relief nurses to ensure breaks and a more equitable distribution of patients.
These human resources (e.g., NGNs)are necessary to bridge the nursing shortage gap and to improve patient outcomes. Global healthcare systems will continue to lose these precious resources if NGNs are viewed as anything other than human.