Abstract
[This is an excerpt.] As a professor at a school of nursing, I have responded to numerous inquiries from my former students who are interested in changing positions, transferring to nonpatient care areas, or seeking work outside the profession of nursing altogether. They describe relentless demands that exceed their tolerance for occupational stress and report being tired and feeling hopeless as they struggle to cope with the protracted effects of the pandemic and challenges in the workplace. They are concerned about their own physical and mental well-being and fear that their professional obligation to provide quality care is in jeopardy. These distressing personal reports from new graduates in their formative years of training are consistent with recent national reports from media outlets that alert readers to the patient safety risks related to deteriorating working conditions in hospitals and a clinical workforce that is suffering from burnout and on the edge of collapse. What began as a call to duty for U.S. health care professionals to respond to a global emergency has resulted in a parallel pandemic of burnout with personal consequences, job disruptions, and potential risk to patients because of compromised quality of care. [To read more, click View Resource.]
