This month's cover photo-chosen in honor of Nurses Day-shows ICU nurse Elizabeth Carr caring for a patient with COVID-19 at Jefferson Hospital in Jefferson Hills, Pennsylvania, in January. Carr is one of several Jefferson Hospital nurses featured in a photo-essay, "Finding Hope Amid Darkness," published by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (see https://triblive.com/local/holding-onto-hope-inside-a-covid-icu; a short video is also available). Journalist Megan Guza and photographer Shane Dunlap spent a 12-hour shift in the hospital's ICU, capturing the arduous and emotional work of attending to critically ill COVID-19 patients and talking with the nurses about their feelings nearly two years into the pandemic. Carr said that owing to the work-related strain of COVID-19, she had recently decided to scale back her shifts in the medical ICU-opting instead to spend more time working in a surgical ICU at another hospital. The medical ICU, she explained, "got to be a bit much. . . . My mental state was rocky for a little bit. I enjoy it-it's my job-but it wears on you." Another nurse, Bre Feldner, said, "We're all tired. We're very tired. . . . It's been a long time."
In her editorial in this issue, "Honoring Nurses Where They Need It," AJN senior clinical editor Christine Moffa notes that, while nurses have been broadly recognized for their work during the pandemic, staffing shortages caused by poor working conditions have made being a nurse more taxing than ever. "We must remember that while we honor nurses on Nurses Day," she writes, "we must also address the issues contributing to nurse burnout and stress, as well as their solutions."-Diane Szulecki, editor