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I know it can be very stressful and overwhelming working with sick infants and there families how do you stay calm and focused under the pressure?

For my Literacy class, I am completing a project that involves interviewing a professional in the medical field I'm interested in to learn more about their career journey and experiences.

I am very interested in the field of neonatology

doctor neonatal neonatology neonatalnurse neonatalogist
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James’s Answer

Not everyone can care for critically ill infants and children. You can learn a lot about how to manage this, but I think some of us just have some innate ability to compartmentalize and focus on what needs to be done for the benefit of a given patient and all of the other sick patients in the same ICU. I usually had little trouble with this, but every so often a patient and their family connected with me on such a personal level that it was truly difficult to work effectively while going through the painful and scary emotions that are routine in an ICU.
One must develop a supportive team that helps one another through difficult times.
One must allow family and friends to support you (you can't give details, but you can accept hugs when you have had a difficult time.
One must find a way to keep up with sleep, healthy diet, and exercise. A depleted person cannot stand up to the emotional challenges for long.
Hospital social workers have been very helpful during my career in supporting all of us on the care team through tough times.
Know going in that your job is not to save everyone. Your job is to keep up with science and best practices and implement those with compassion. You must know that patients will die or have bad long-term outcomes despite doing everything right.
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Keith’s Answer

Like any stressful profession, whether medicine or many others, the foundational training and the supervised gaining of experience are pivotal. Add to that a personality type that likes challenges and high acuity care, which is typical of most neonatologists and other critical care physicians and nurse practitioners.
Finally, my faith plays a significant role in how I remained calm under pressure. It is not all up to me; I trust God to give me the needed elements at the right time, the good personnel to collaborate with, and a support system to provide what is needed for quaility care.
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