Credit: Chris Nickels for NPR
Sometimes, even professionally compassionate people get tired.
Kristin Laurel, a flight nurse from Waconia, Minn., has worked in trauma units for over two decades. The daily exposure to distressing situations can sometimes result in compassion fatigue.
“Some calls get to you, no matter who you are,” she says.
That burnout is what Laurel says she was trying to understand when she wrote her semi-autobiographical poem, Afflicted. The poem delves into the night shift of an emergency room nurse in Minneapolis, weaving together stories of patients who are homeless, addicted to drugs or victims of homicide.
Ten years ago, Laurel took a writing workshop in Minneapolis and earned a two-year fellowship that introduced her to the world of contemporary poetry. She found that, unlike other forms of writing, poetry had an efficiency and raw honesty that made it a fitting outlet for her observations as a trauma nurse.
Laurel published her first collection of poems, Giving Them All Away, after winning the Sinclair Prize for poetry in 2011.
She says that writing allowed her to acknowledge her darker experiences in the ER while also taking care of herself.
“It’s a way of letting go,” she says, especially of patients who die. “I acknowledge their life as well as let go of my grief. There’s definitely power and healing in that.”
Listen to Kristin Laurel read her poem
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