Holding the healers 

By Nettie Reynolds, MDiv, interfaith chaplain 

In my first year as a hospital chaplain at a large hospital in Austin, Texas, I learned that there’s a first time for every maternity nurse to experience a baby who doesn’t survive or a mother who dies in labor. Even in a unit devoted to beginnings, there are endings that arrive without warning. 

One afternoon, a supervisor asked me to sit with a young nurse after her first birth loss. What this caring nurse needed most was a place where she could speak honestly about her grief and shock, and about her fear that naming these feelings might somehow reflect poorly on her as a professional. She needed to know that expressing her feelings about how the loss affected her wouldn’t jeopardize her job or her identity as a capable clinician. 

What clinicians carry 

That encounter reflects something many healthcare professionals experience across specialties. Every clinician will eventually lose a patient. Yet many do so without a safe outlet for the emotional impact of that loss. 

Recent national data reinforce what clinicians already know from lived experience. The “Physicians Foundation’s 2025 Wellbeing Survey of America’s Physicians,” shows that while some measures of burnout have shifted, physicians continue to report high levels of stress, anxiety, and emotional strain. Feelings of exhaustion, withdrawal, anger, and tearfulness remain common, signaling that clinician well-being continues to be a pressing concern. When emotional strain has nowhere to go, it doesn’t disappear. It accumulates. 

No matter the circumstances, each patient loss leaves an imprint on the healthcare professionals who cared for them. In fast-paced settings such as emergency departments and intensive care units, losses can occur back-to-back, sometimes multiple times in a single shift. There is often little opportunity to pause before moving on to the next patient, the next decision, the next urgent need.  

You’re not alone

One of the most protective factors against emotional weight is remembering that healthcare isn’t practiced in solitude. Colleagues care. Shared reflection can help. Even brief moments of acknowledgment can help prevent grief from becoming internalized. Simply naming that loss is hard reinforces that emotional responses are part of the work. 

It’s also important to remember that chaplains are part of your clinical team, not only present for patients and families. Chaplains are available to sit with clinicians after patient deaths, during personal family losses, or in moments of crisis. We listen without evaluation or consequence. Reaching out isn’t an admission of weakness. It’s an act of sustainability and shared humanity. 

Whether or not a chaplain is available, clinicians can also make space for one another. Identifying a trusted peer who can listen without judgment and offering that same presence in return creates a shared container for loss. 

Small rituals that can help 

I learned a helpful practice from a cardiologist I worked with. When he arrived home at the end of the day, he always took off his work shoes before stepping inside. He never wore them anywhere but the hospital. For him, it was a way of marking the transition from clinical intensity to home life. 

He described it as like the way an athlete takes off cleats or a helmet after a game. The gear belongs to the field, not the living room. When I began doing the same, I was surprised by how much it helped. That small ritual gave my body and mind a moment to shift out of the constant alertness clinicians often carry. 

Patient death will always be part of healthcare. How we care for those who carry that reality determines not only their well-being, but the depth of care they’re able to offer. 

This piece expresses the views solely of the author. It does not necessarily represent the views of any organization, including Johns Hopkins Medicine.