Paws for Pennsy
This fi rst-time event, which featured fi ve pets from a nearby animal shelter, was sponsored by the hospital’s Care for the Care Provider group in which Vanek and Emge are involved. “We had overwhelming response,” Emge said. “About
200 staff turned up during the three-hour event, and we heard a lot of conversations from staff all over the hospital. People haven’t stopped talking about it.” Paws for Pennsy is an off shoot of the Pet a Pooch
program previously off ered at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Vanek said surveys to check on the levels of stress,
Nurses use By Karen Schmidt, RN
creative measures to relieve ED stress
Florence Vanek, MSN, RN, believes that though nurses work in a stressful environment, they don’t need to live in an environment of stress and anxiety. Aiming to relieve some of the work stress nurses experience, Vanek, a professional practice implementation consultant at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, and colleague Amanda Emge, BSN, RN, assistant nurse manager on the hospital’s mother-baby unit, helped engineer the institution’s fi rst Paws for Pennsy event this spring. Nurses and other hospital staff were invited to cuddle, pet, and enjoy the antics of dogs and cats and get much-needed tension relief.
16 Visit us at
NURSE.com • 2016 Florence Vanek, RN
anxiety and happiness revealed that individuals experienced signifi cant stress relief after their animal petting experience. Paws for Pennsy events are now scheduled quarterly.
Laughter is best medicine
Another route to reducing ED stress is laughter. Terry Foster, MSN, RN, CCRN, CEN, CPEN, FAEN, advocates using humor to take the edge off of perpetual pressure resulting from emergency nursing. Foster works as a clinical nurse specialist in the ED at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Edgewood, Ky. “Nurses laugh together, and we cry alone,” Foster said.
“We laugh together because we get together for social time, and we say, ‘Let’s not talk about work,’ but fi ve minutes later we’re talking about work and the funny stuff that happens.” Foster shares his philosophy of humor as a coping mechanism through workshops and lectures, affi rming the power of humor for stress relief. “It’s all about the job,” he said. “We laugh at the things that normal people wouldn’t fi nd funny.” Often, he said, patients say or do things that become
Amanda Emge, RN
sources of nurse humor. For example, patients try to pronounce an unfamiliar medical term which ends up being funny to professionals. Foster is careful to use healthcare humor appropriately. “We poke fun or laugh at a situation, but it’s not personal. We want to be very aware of that and not off end anyone,” he said. Foster said nurses should be careful about not sharing a humorous moment within hearing distance of a patient or family member. •
Karen Schmidt, RN, is a freelance writer. Terry Foster, RN
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