Supporting yourself as a health-care student

As a healthcare student (nursing, social work, pharmacy, medicine, personal support worker, dentistry, etc.), you may face a multitude of unique challenges and barriers throughout your post-secondary journey. Typically, you may see an increased presence of burnout, anxiety, sleep disturbances/insomnia, depression, psychological pressure, and an attachment to your cellphone (i.e., nomophobia).^1-3

CALL-OUT BOX: For more information on tips and tricks to reduce the use of your cellphone and social media, check out our infosheet here.

In recent years, there has been an increase in healthcare workers reporting feelings of empathic strain, which is caused by exposure to occupational stress at a higher-than-normal intensity due to factors such as increased workload and decreased clinical autonomy. It results in physical and emotional exhaustion, as well as a decreased ability to empathize with those who they are helping and or who may be going through a difficult experience. For more information on empathic strain and protective factors, please visit CICMH’s infosheet here.

Another issue some healthcare students must contend with is the ongoing shortage of nurses and family doctors in Ontario. Addressing the shortage is crucial, but it must be done in combination with offering support to students undergoing training and education before, during, and after program completion.

CALL-OUT BOX: For more information on how to create a healthy placement environment, check out our infosheet here.

One of the ways the Ontario government is trying to address the nursing and family doctor shortage is through increased funding and expanded programs (click here and here for more information on this). However, many of these programs, such as the Ontario Learn and Stay Grant, have strict conditions students must abide by (e.g., requiring you to work in the area you studied for a certain amount of time) which can bring about external issues (financials, living situations, etc.).

The following section will provide you with recommendations on how to handle/cope with different situations you may find yourself in as a healthcare student. Whether you’re just starting your program, or you’re in your last year, these tips can help you thrive as a healthcare student and professional.

Recommendations on How to…

Cope with a Code

Responding to a code is a foundational learning experience that pushes you to think critically under pressure, building your confidence for the next time you handle a code.⁴ The adrenaline rush of experiencing a code can leave you exhausted afterwards and the emotions that come with any type of code can be overwhelming, traumatic, and can build-up feelings of self-doubt and anxiety.⁵

Recommendations:

• Lean on your protective factors
  • Social support (friends, family, colleagues, peers, supervisor)
  • Recreational hobbies and/or activities (crafting, sports)
  • Emotional regulation (acknowledge what you’re feeling)
  • Provide your body with the sleep, nutrition, and rest that it needs to reset and recharge
• Engage in mindfulness exercises
  • Journalling
  • Breathing exercises
  • Yoga
  • Walking
• Familiarize yourself with local crisis helplines (i.e., 988, Good2Talk,ConnexOntario)
  • You may not be able to decompress right after a code and feel the complexities that came with it, it could be hours later. Make sure you’re aware of the crisis lines within your area that are always available for you to reach out to. They may be able to provide you with support or help you through your emotions.

Handle the Loss of a Patient

The emotions that come with being in the healthcare sector can be intense. Losing a patient can be emotionally challenging, and you may get stuck rethinking the situation in your head, wondering if you could have done anything differently.⁶ It’s normal to feel a sense of anger, loss, or frustration after losing a patient, and sometimes the outcomes are out of your control despite doing everything right.⁵ You may also have to comfort a patient’s loved ones while you are experiencing grief yourself. During these times, it’s important to acknowledge your feelings and not ignore or push them away. Your job as a healthcare professional is to provide compassionate care, no matter the outcome. It’s important to remember that.

Recommendations:

• Lean on campus, community, and placement support services
  • i.e., peer support, social support, professional support
• Take the time to develop effective coping strategies
  • Acknowledge what you’re feeling – normalize the emotional complexities that come with losing a patient, and remind yourself that there are many factors outside of your control⁷
  • Engage in debriefing sessions with your supervisor and/or colleagues who may be able to offer perspective on your experience and help you process it
• You may find it beneficial to turn to spirituality to cope with the emotional distress you may be experiencing⁸
• Consider setting boundaries to provide yourself with healthy space to protect and prioritize your own mental health. Recognize your limits and what you need to protect yourself from burnout
  • You can learn more by checking out CICMH’s boundaries infosheet here

CALL-OUT BOX: For more information on mindfulness and meditation techniques, check out CICMH’s webinar here.

Navigate Ethical Dilemmas

Identity-related dilemmas can arise in healthcare placements where you must balance educational objectives and professional standards while you juggle being a learner and emerging professional.⁹ This is often one of the hardest parts of being a healthcare student and comes with the feeling of moral residue. Often, you feel powerless in placement settings due to the hierarchical structure of healthcare and can’t support a patient in the way you want to or can, which makes it difficult to navigate complex situations.¹⁰ Conflicts between what the patient wants versus what is good for the patient autonomy and beneficence often comes into play when dealing with medical situations, with the common sources of this conflict being a lack of communication, medical negligence, and unclear understanding of policies around family authority and psychiatric capacity.⁷

Recommendations:

• Lean on social and clinical supports
  • This can be family, friends, or a clinical therapist. Having someone to talk to and work through your feelings towards a specific dilemma can be helpful
• Take the time to debrief
  • This can be with your preceptor, colleagues, or friends. Having that supportive space to debrief about situations and your emotions related to it can really improve your mental health and well-being
• To further your understanding of your responsibilities and limits, consider taking some time to review appropriate policies, ethics codes, and scope of practice

Manage Overwhelming Workloads

In a culture of self-sacrifice, it can be hard to prioritize your own well-being and have a healthy work-life balance.¹¹ Ineffectively balancing academic workloads, placement expectations and experiences, friends, family, and hobbies, can increase rates of anxiety, burnout, stress, and depression.¹¹

CALL-OUT BOX: To learn more about burnout and the 3 solution-focused steps to recover from it, check out CICMH’s infosheet here.

Recommendations:

• Utilize institutional and placement support services
• Look into different time management techniques
  • i.e., Pomodoro, Time Blocking, prioritization hierarchy
• Make time for self-compassionate activities
  •  i.e., adequate sleep, nutrition, and exercise, partake in hobbies and interests
• Set boundaries
  • Assess your available time and energy levels, get to know your limits and when you’ve reached them before burning out
• Lean on your support system
  • This can be friends, family, peers, classmates, mentors, or supervisors

CALL-OUT BOX: To learn more about setting boundaries, check out CICMH’s infosheet here.

Deal with Imposter Syndrome

It can be a lot of pressure to handle someone’s life in your hands. The competitive nature of the field, rigorous studying, unrealistic self-standards, pressure to succeed, and exposure to constant criticism are a few reasons that the healthcare sector has one of the highest rates of imposter syndrome.^12,13

Nursing and medical school give you a lot of information to learn, digest, and memorize, and sometimes it can be overwhelming, leading you to believe that you’ll never know it all. It’s important to remember that it is a lifetime of skills; you don’t need to know everything from the get-go, you’ll learn as you gain more experience.¹³ It can be especially difficult to combat imposter syndrome if your preceptor is burnt out and does not have the capacity to teach you the necessary skills, or is only giving you smaller jobs (i.e., cleaning beds, helping patients to the washroom, taking their blood pressure), and not letting you put your skills to use.

Many students who experience imposter syndrome often suffer in silence because they are hesitant or embarrassed to speak up about what they’re feeling.¹³ Imposter syndrome is also linked to anxiety, depression, and poor mental health outcomes.^12,13

CALL-OUT BOX: To learn more about imposter syndrome, check out CICMH’s infosheet here.

Recommendations:

• Create a list of your strengths
  • In moments where you question your place in healthcare, it can be beneficial to have a list of your strengths to refer to and remind yourself of your belonging in this field.
• Practice positive affirmations
  • Writing down, and referring to, short positive statements can help you overcome cognitive biases, negative thinking patterns, and improve your well-being.
  • Examples of positive affirmations could be:
    • I am doing my best
    • I am capable
    • I make a difference
    • I am proud of myself and the work I do
    • I provide compassionate care
• Shift from a performance to learning mindset
  • Instead of adopting a performance mindset, which views failure as a sign of incompetence, try shifting to a learning mindset which views failure as a necessary stepping stone towards success and focuses on growth and skill development
• Try talking to individuals who have been in the profession for a while as they may be able to offer realistic perspectives. While you may feel you are alone in feeling this way, imposter syndrome is common and is not a sign of incompetence.

Discuss Accommodations and Schedule Flexibility

Many healthcare organizations have rigid schedules and rules that you must adhere to in your placement that don’t accommodate other aspects of your schedule or needs (family commitments, jobs, health condition, disability, etc.). The unique demands of clinical environments can be hard to navigate and can reveal barriers that require immediate attention. Adjustments and accommodations should be seriously considered by both post-secondary institutions and placement organizations to promote academic success and inclusion.

CALL-OUT BOX: For more information, check out our Accessibility and Accommodations toolkit here and our Chronic Health Conditions toolkit here.

Recommendations:

• Familiarize yourself with accessibility services
  • At both your post-secondary institution and placement organization, get to know the accessibility services available to you.
• Advocate for your own well-being
  • You can express your concerns and work with the post-secondary institution and placement organization to make the necessary adjustments to help you succeed.
• Openly communicate
  • Be open about your specific needs and, if possible, proactively suggest workable strategies, schedules, and accommodations while also demonstrating flexibility and willingness to collaborate. Gather the appropriate documentation to support your request(s).
• Know your rights
  • Self-advocacy isn’t always a quick process. Be persistent, keep records, and be clear and direct in the accommodation you are requesting. Contact your campus’ disability services office to learn more about your rights and options.

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References

1. Efstathiou M, Kakaidi V, Tsitsas G, Mantzoukas S, Gouva M, Dragioti E. The prevalence of mental health issues among nursing students: An umbrella review synthesis of meta-analytic evidence. International Journal of Nursing Studies. 2025 Mar;163:104993. doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2025.104993

2. Chunhong H, Jingjing D, Huan H, Peiyao Z, Xiaona Z, Xiaowen Y, et al. A cross-sectional study of the current status of psychological health and its correlation with academic performance in medical students: Taking medical students in a Medical University in China as examples. Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2025 Feb 11;16. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1496248

3. Aslani M, Sadeghi N, Janatolmakan M, Rezaeian S, Khatony A. Nomophobia among nursing students: Prevalence and associated factors. Scientific Reports. 2025 Jan 2;15(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-024-83949-5

4. Kolehmainen C, Stahr A, Kaatz A, Brennan M, Vogelman B, Cook J, et al. Post-code PTSD symptoms in internal medicine residents who participate in cardiopulmonary resuscitation events: A mixed methods study. Journal of Graduate Medical Education. 2015 Sept 1;7(3):475–9. doi:10.4300/jgme-d-14-00424.1

5. DeBos C. Your first code blue: 8 things I wish I knew [Internet]. 2025 [cited 2026 Feb 3]. Available from: https://www.edumed.org/articles/preparing-for-your-first-code-blue/#:~:text=Everyone%20deals%20with%20emotions%20in,you’re%20in%20a%20code.

6. Kim G. Silent suffering: Recognizing and addressing the emotional impact of patient loss on medical students. International Journal of Medical Students. 2024 Jul 9;12(2):226–7. doi:10.5195/ijms.2024.2689

7. Wesevich AJ, Gulbas LE, Ryder HF. Investigating medical students’ navigation of ethical dilemmas: Understanding the breakdown and how to solve it. AJOB Empirical Bioethics. 2023 Jun 21;14(4):227–36. doi:10.1080/23294515.2023.2224589

8. Lisai-Goldstein Y, Shaulov A. Medical students’ experience of a patient’s death and their coping strategies: A narrative literature review. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®. 2024 Jun 21;42(4):413–20. doi:10.1177/10499091241264523

9. Ahuja D, Batra P, Bhatia O, Singh A. Ethical dilemmas and conventionalism in Healthcare: A scoping review. Cureus. 2024 Sept 19; doi:10.7759/cureus.69693

10. Hwu L, Pai H. Exploring ethical dilemmas and coping strategies in nursing: A FOCUS Group Study of nurses and nursing students. Nursing & Health Sciences. 2025 Apr 24;27(2). doi:10.1111/nhs.70082

11. Picton A. Work-life balance in medical students: Self-care in a culture of self-sacrifice. BMC Medical Education. 2021 Jan 6;21(1). doi:10.1186/s12909-020-02434-5

12. Chami B. Effectively managing Imposter Syndrome in medicine [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2026 Feb 3]. Available from: https://thischangedmypractice.com/imposter-syndrome-in-medicine/

13. Iktidar MA, Ara R, Roy S, Ahmed M, Chowdhury S, Eva FN, et al. Imposter phenomenon among health professionals and students: A protocol for systematic review and Meta Analysis. Medicine. 2023 Jul 21;102(29). doi:10.1097/md.0000000000034364