A celebration of nurses filled the last two gratitude columns. Nurses’ compassionate devotion to every patient, even at the end of 12-hour shifts, is the pinnacle of human kindness. They attend to the physical and emotional well-being of every patient, regardless of age, race, or condition. “How do they keep this up?” asked my husband repeatedly during my two recent stays in the cardiac ICU of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. That question echoed in my mind, so I researched burnout among nurses and other healthcare workers.