Anecdotally - I have an acquaintance exiting the field of pediatric nursing. They worked in the ICU and with chronic conditions (cancer, heart disease, etc.).

Anecdotally - I have an acquaintance exiting the field of pediatric nursing. They worked in the ICU and with chronic conditions (cancer, heart disease, etc.). The deaths were always hard when working with little kids - and there were a couple a month. But towards the end of COVID they were losing 4 kids PER WEEK (anecdote - I have no data other than listening to them vent) that this nurse firmly believed were avoidable had they received appropriate care. What caused them to exit was how the hospital handled COVID: they postponed all elective surgeries. For these children, an elective surgery was anything where they "wouldn't die tomorrow" if the surgery wasn't done (somewhat of an oversimplification - but ballpark correct). During that time hearts got worse, cancer progressed, bodies shut down until electives became emergencies... Success rates of surgeries dropped. And once restrictions started lifting the staff was underwater, they had a huge backlog of "electives" piled up on top of the normal ingress - kids were dying from waiting.