Sometimes, even professionally compassionate people get tired.
Kristin Laurel, a flight nurse from Waconia, Minn., has worked in trauma units for over two decades. The daily exposure to distressing situations can sometimes result in compassion fatigue.
"Some calls get to you, no matter who you are," she says.
That burnout is what Laurel says she was trying to understand when she wrote her semi-autobiographical poem, Afflicted. The poem delves into the night shift of an emergency room nurse in Minneapolis, weaving together stories of patients who are homeless, addicted to drugs or victims of homicide.
[For more of this story, written by Meredith Rizzo, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/he...n-compassion-fatigue]
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