I spent much of the second half of 2021 connecting with ICU nurses and build trust with them to let me tell their stories, since most of their employers did not authorize them to speak to a reporter. It became clear that many of them wanted to tell their stories, whether their hospital approved or not.
This audio entry includes three examples of stories which tried to capture what’s going on with nurse burnout and the upheaval created by the travel nursing bonanza.
In the first example, we hear from an ICU nurse at the largest hospital in Tennessee who works overnight with COVID patients. She’s one of several who agreed to record audio diaries after each shift. I’d give them three prompts and they’d record themselves with their iPhone and send the audio to me along with a selfie. This story, which includes no narration by me, resonated far and wide, getting picked up for national broadcast on NPR’s Here & Now.
The second story looks at how the shortage of ICU nurses drove up the hourly rates for traveling nurses, which then caused a rub between the staffers and the travelers, tempting the staffers to also travel for considerably higher pay, only to leave a hole to be filled by a traveler. Things have only gotten worse since this story aired in September. This story was also picked up for national broadcast on Marketplace.
The third piece looks a bit closer at how hospitals are trying to get back from relying so much on travelers, from using new recruiters to flying in foreign nurses. They still haven’t figured it out, but this was the start. This piece was picked up for national broadcast on NPR’s Morning Edition.