Nursing Stresses in the Intensive Care Unit

Abstract
To the Editor:— The report of the Committee on Nursing, "Stresses on the Nurse in an Intensive-Care Unit" (208:332, 1969), recognizes a new problem incurred by nursing staff concurrent with the development of intensive-care units (ICU). A case of paroxysmal auricular tachycardia and a case of acute duodenitis in the intensive-care unit of Clara Maass Memorial Hospital, prompted a review of our personnel practices which may provide partial solutions to some of the problems expressed by Vreeland and Ellis. First, personnel should be selected with care. Although no clearly defined profile of successful ICU nurses exist, we have found them to be young, healthy, well motivated, and energetic to the point of exuberance. They are not always classified as the most "academic" as defined by prior nursing school evaluation but demonstrate nursing ability early in their careers. Ellis and Vreeland recognize the anxiety caused "by insecurity in knowledge or