Tristin Kate Smith, a 28-year-old Ohio nurse, wrote a scathing letter to her "abuser" five months ahead of her August 2023 suicide.
Tristin Kate
Smith, a 28-year-old Ohio nurse, wrote a scathing letter to her
"abuser" five months ahead of her August 2023 suicide.
The letter has
since gone viral among nurses across the country — many of whom share Smith’s
disillusionment with the U.S. health care system.
"I so
desperately want to continue to help people, but I cannot stay in this abusive
relationship," wrote Smith, who worked as an emergency room nurse in
Dayton, Ohio.
Her father, Ron
Smith, discovered the letter, titled "A Letter to My Abuser," on the
nurse’s laptop two months after her death.
In October, it was
published as a letter to the editor in The Oakwood Register, a local paper in
Ohio, in an effort to raise awareness of how some nurses feel the system they
serve is failing them.
Smith, the
youngest of six children in her family, battled depression but reportedly never
sought professional help.
"Those in the
health care field may avoid talking about their mental health struggles for
fear of jeopardizing their licensure and negatively impacting their ability to
continue serving in their current roles," Dr. Lama Bazzi, a psychiatrist
in private practice in New York City, told Fox News Digital in comments about
the case and its wider ramifications.
"It is vital
to the survival of the health care field for workers to feel safe asking for
help — and for help to be readily available to meet their needs before their
mental health struggles rise to the level of suicidality," she added.
"We cannot
continue to expect health care workers to suffer in silence when they are at
risk for a tragic yet preventable cause of death."
In his own letter
in The Oakwood Register, Smith’s father wrote that he now has
"regret-filled hindsight" for not seeing the signs that his daughter
was not OK.
She showered her
"beloved" dog Calypso with "more dog enrichment toys and
contraptions than a single pet store sells," her father wrote.
Smith had also
posted affirmations and mantras throughout her home.
"She tried so
hard to stay alive, but none of it was enough to stop the darkness," her
father said in the letter.
"We — nurses
and doctors — entered our professions with the noblest of ambitions: to help
others who are hurting," Dr. Mikkael Sekeres, a wellness expert and chief
of the division of hematology of Sylvester Cancer Center at the University of
Miami, told Fox News Digital.
"It’s
difficult to do that when you hurt more than your patients do," he went
on. "When this happens, people leave medicine, or worse."
In her letter,
Smith stated that a shortage of nurses made her feel overwhelmed.
"Each day,
you ask me to do more with less," she wrote.
In a statement to
Fox News Digital, the American Nurses Association (ANA), headquartered in
Maryland, said that the "negative emotions, mental health challenges and
burnout" nurses are facing are "symptomatic of a broken health care
system that far too often fails to provide nurses with continuous support and
to address chronic work environment challenges."
Recently, over
75,000 unionized Kaiser Permanente employees across six states — many of whom
were front-line support staff — staged the largest walkout of health care
workers in U.S. history over concerns of staff shortages.
Nurses were 18%
more likely to die from suicide than those in the general population between
2007 and 2018.
"National
data about the state of nurses' mental health and well-being indicates that
they are suffering mental anguish or toxic emotions, and combating stigma as a
health care professional seeking help," the ANA added.
Smith’s letter
also referenced that many nurses feel that hospital administrators are taking
advantage of them.
"You are a
narcissist," she wrote. "You use and exploit us to line your pockets,
using the common citizen’s money for overpriced health care."
She called for
more workplace safety and for nurses to not receive blame for being assaulted
on the job.
"I remember
the first time I heard about nurses getting hit," she wrote.
"I remember
that you asked them what they’d done — or didn’t do — to prevent it from
happening."
"Women are
particularly vulnerable — differences in stress in workload, burnout and
difficulty with work-life balance may all be implicated."
Nurses were 18%
more likely to die from suicide than the general population between 2007 and
2018, according to a 2021 report that included data from the CDC and the
National Violent Death Reporting System.
Female nurses were
70% more likely to die by suicide than female physicians, and twice as likely
to die by suicide compared to the general population.
"I would make
the case that most health care workers feel the system is broken," Sekeres
told Fox News Digital.
"Some still
have the energy to take it on, and to create solutions to problems their
patients face by being innovative with workarounds to systemic problems, while
others have given up and feel helpless to be advocates for their
patients," he added.
"I would make
the case that most health care workers feel the system is broken."
"It’s this
learned helplessness that I believe is the greatest contributor to burnout in
health care."
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