Attending the Center to Advance Interprofessional Education and Practice (CAIEP) discussion was a great opportunity to hear from a variety of fellow University of New England (UNE) students from different programs and different years.  The collective input and discussion were focused on resilience and relationships surrounding patient care.  To define resilience in my own words: The ability to see through difficult situations and obtain a goal.  Resilience is crucial in the field of nursing as we are the support or even the lifeline for people.  People put a lot of faith in the needed care that they are receiving, and, in many cases, it is life or death.  This weight is carried by us as nurses as it is our duty to sustain life for others and to be strength when our patients need it.

            This is a weight that medical providers of all sorts carry.  As when our resilience faulters so does our quality of care.  We discussed in the event ways to prevent things such as burnout and lifestyle choices that can promote our strength and put us in the best position possible to provide high quality care.  It was interesting to hear because as nurses we use the terms activity of daily living (ADL) often and it is related to education for a patient about lifestyle changes they can make to improve their quality of life.  Nurses experience burnout in various ways and from various scenarios.  The common aspect is that outside of work it is important to maintain healthy ADLs such as exercise, happy relationships, nutrition, and experiencing joy.  Often work can become overwhelming as the weight of providing care is that a weight.  To analogize it the best way to carry weight more easily is to exercise.  By exercising our ADLs and strengthening ourselves we gain power through resiliency.  This creates stature that we can use when providing care to our patients. 

            The discussion from the event was nothing new to any of us, but that does not mean it lacked importance.  Being reminded of caring for ourselves and the things we can do in our lives will impact our patients.  The importance to be reminded of how to avoid burnout and how to care for us should be relived often.  Just like how we are trained to recheck vitals often and to verify stability we can relate that to doing self-checks on our well-being.