I commend Hui-wen (Alina) Sato for "Loss from Nurse Attrition Goes Deeper Than Numbers" (Best of the Blog, September). I, too, long ago felt that deep sense of "family" when I worked for a year in a medical ICU. I was in the trenches, and the team kept me going. But, as nurses have witnessed repeatedly, being part of a team only goes so far: when the individual team members weaken, the whole team is weakened. It is simply unsustainable. Nurses need much more support than they are currently receiving. To me, that change must start with mandated, legal patient care ratios enacted within some sort of a national health care system where the focus is on the patient and not the money.

Shawn P., via ajnoffthecharts.com