In early October, I went to the employee health clinic for my flu shot. I don’t know about you, but this annual intramuscular encounter always makes me a little nervous for the anticipated pain, though I think I hide my dread well. This time, the nurse gave me such a painless injection that, for a fleeting moment, I wondered if she had actually done it at all. The tiny blot of blood on the band aid assured me she had.
As I prepared to leave the airless and windowless vaccination room, I told the nurse, “That was the most painless injection I have ever had” as my by-your-leave way of appreciating her imitable injection skills. She beamed with delight and in return thanked me for thanking her. On my way home, I pondered upon my own hypodermic skills all the years I practiced as a bedside nurse, feeling unsure how skilled I was at giving injections because I couldn’t recall a patient ever commenting on whether I was good or bad at it.
“Thank you for the compliment!”
I can’t pinpoint exactly when I began making a deliberate effort to offer authentic, situational compliments in my everyday interactions. Perhaps it started after I read the New York Times article “Don’t underestimate the power of a compliment.” Or maybe it was born from years of sitting in meetings where people eagerly shared their pet peeves but rarely paused to acknowledge what brings them joy.
Compliment-giving, I’ve realized, is gratitude’s close cousin. When we sincerely compliment someone, we’re essentially saying, “Thank you for being you.” And like gratitude, compliments tend to multiply; one genuine acknowledgment frequently inspires another, warmly expanding the circle of joy around us.
Why should we give thanks?
Research continues to affirm what many of us intuitively know: gratitude is good and good for our health. A study has shown that people who regularly practice gratitude, such as by writing down what they’re thankful for, report feeling more optimistic, exercising more, and reporting fewer symptoms of physical illness than those who focus on life’s daily irritations. Another study found that keeping a gratitude journal, writing thank-you notes, or reflecting on moments of thankfulness improved mental well-being more effectively than practicing self-kindness alone.
A meta-analysis further linked gratitude with lower levels of depression. Most strikingly, a large cohort study of nearly 49,000 nurses (average age 79) found that those with the highest levels of gratitude had a 9% lower risk of dying from any cause, especially from heart disease, compared with their less grateful peers. Gratitude, it seems, isn’t just uplifting; it also may be lifesaving.
The nurse a patient is assigned to may sometimes hinge on the luck of the draw, the idiosyncratic quirks of the nurse-in-charge, or the unit’s dynamics. In other words, ending up with a good (or not-so-good) nurse is more art than science. This realization, I feel, is another reason why our patients show gratitude to healthcare workers, knowing there’s a possibility one could be assigned to a bad nurse. Can you imagine?
From the nurse’s perspective, we ought to give thanks for the privilege to serve others in meaningful ways. There’s much talk about burnout among healthcare workers. Familiar solutions such as taking vacations are often invoked.
Staying fired up to prevent burnout
Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies, reflects that some of the most meaningful antidotes to burnout frequently demand more from us, not less. What sustains him, he explains, isn’t stepping away from the work but engaging more meaningfully with it, letting intellectual curiosity become a sustaining force. In his view, he avoided burning out by allowing himself to burn a little brighter.
For nurses and healthcare workers, this insight pairs powerfully with the practice of gratitude. When we take the time to thank a colleague, to acknowledge a patient’s courage, or to recognize our own competence, we create pockets of meaning in a system that frequently feels mechanical.
Gratitude sharpens our awareness of why the work matters; curiosity and craftsmanship remind us what drew us here in the first place. Together, they form a kind of internal scaffolding, helping us stay upright, purposeful, and humane amid the pressures of the profession and the society at large.
Fidelindo Lim, DNP, CCRN, FAAN is a Clinical Associate Professor at New York University Meyers College of Nursing.
