Nurses Week May 6-12: One Trauma Nurse’s Insights Into His Own ‘Life and Death’ Struggles On The Frontlines

SURVIVING TRAUMA AND CRISIS FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BED Re-releases during National Nurses Week

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, UNITED STATES, May 6, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Frank Mitchell, an experienced RN of 20 years serving as a trauma nurse at a level one trauma center in Minnesota at the break-out of COVID in 2020, feels blessed to be here to share his experience in his new book, SURVIVING TRAUMA AND CRISIS FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BED, being re-released this week in softcover edition at Amazon.

During the first 12 months of the global pandemic, more than 3,600 US healthcare workers were lost --falling ill to COVID in the line of duty, as did Mitchell. Nurses accounted for roughly one in three COVID deaths (32%) in the pandemic’s first year. Widespread shortages of masks, and other personal protective gear known as PPE, a lack of defensive hospital protocol, disinformation about the vaccines, the shortage of nurses that added grueling hours to already overworked staff—the list of “whys” is still being analyzed. It’s estimated that over 100,000 registered nurses in the US left their workplaces permanently. An outspoken Christian, Mitchell feels the “isolation factor” brought on by COVID produced not only record medical staff burn out, but that that same isolation brought significant patient deaths as a sidebar to the deadliness of the virus itself.

He noted in a recent interview: “The purpose of the book is to reinforce our need for an army of support for each other in the face of crisis. Physical, mental, and spiritual resources need to come ‘from the other side of the bed,” as they did for me at a time most needed. Unfortunately with COVID the barrier of fear built by the unknown, left many people isolated and left to die alone in hospitals and nursing homes. No family gathered around his bed, no hand to hold, many times I saw patients saying their last goodbyes on FaceTime.”

“As I experienced my life suddenly from the ‘other side of the bed,’ I saw first-hand the desert island of trauma and crisis. With sickness, trauma, and crisis, each member of those surrounding the experience will feel helpless and alone—patient, family, friends and the care team itself which is there to serve. What we have to learn from COVID is the importance of “team care” for every patient and how we can communicate it to dispel the fear of the pain and emptiness, ‘aloneness’ brings. Isolation is no one’s friend!”

Frank Mitchell’s months long journey to healing was not without setbacks but he is today back on the frontlines in the trauma unit—wiser and more compassionate because of his experience. “Am I a living miracle? ‘Many people say I am because there were so many others who went through what I experienced and did not survive their experience. In humility, I can say I truly believe I am a miracle. In my “army” were God, my wife, my children, friends, family, and people I didn’t even know who were praying for me. Now with COVID four years behind us, we see the awful mental aftereffects of
‘COVID PTSD.” Record numbers of cases of anxiety, depression and suicide, especially among young people, are coming through our hospital doors. We desperately need new levels of support models and protocols that leaves no one in the time of need on the lonely road of isolation.”

For Media review copies and interviews with author:
Jackie Monaghan
Morningstar PR –Nashville
(615) 390-0792 –Direct
morningstarpr@comcast.net

Martha E Moore
so much MOORE media
email us here