Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice: A Guide to Professional Resilience and Personal Well-Being

Medical and nursing professionals working in today's health care settings must be prepared to offer support in dangerous times despite staffing shortages, financial pressures, and complex legal requirements. The nature of this work puts these professionals in harm's way not only physically, but at greater risk for secondary stress, trauma, burnout and other emotional impacts exacerbating the need for self-care.

There is no better time to revisit the problem of secondary stress among caregivers than on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic. Times of challenge and change test health care professionals' self-care insights, strategy, and reserves. New learnings and ways of maneuvering through difficult professional practice situations and life in general can become permanent elements in our self-care cache. This book will enrich the reader's insights and strategies with respect to secondary stress leading to enhanced resilience of mind, body and spirit. This second edition draws on content in the first edition and information from classic literature and research findings about the phenomenon of secondary stress experienced by nurses, physicians and physician assistants. This book highlights the importance of interprofessional communication and support in ameliorating the stressors of clinical work, an effort enhanced by interdisciplinary co-authorship. Educators and front line clinicians have come to the realization that the recognition and self-management of secondary stress and burnout will contribute to a high functioning, caring health care delivery system in the future that prevents attrition and major health problems for those in clinical careers. Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice is an indispensable resource for medical and nursing professionals, students, and the counselors and therapists who work with them.

About author(s):
Robert J. Wicks, PsyD, received his doctorate in psychology from Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital and is Professor Emeritus, Loyola University Maryland. He has published more than 50 books and has lectured on the importance of resilience, self-care, and maintaining a healthy perspective all around the world as well as at the Mayo Clinic, Yale School of Nursing, Harvard's Children's Hospital and Harvard Divinity School, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and on Capitol Hill to Members of Congress and their Chiefs of Staff. He has written and edited dozens of books, most recently The Tao of Ordinariness (Oxford University Press, 2019) and Night Call (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Gloria Ferraro Donnelly, PhD, RN, FAAN, FCPP, is Dean Emerita, Professor Emerita and founding Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Professions, Drexel University (1999 to 2016). Donnelly is the author of five textbooks and the winner of two American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year awards. She has been Editor in Chief of the journal Holistic Nursing Practice for 40 years and has published 300 articles, and book chapters. She has given national presentations on family caregiving, assertiveness, stress management and leadership in clinical and academic settings.