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For nurses with little left after handover

Your shift is over.
Why does it still feel like you’re on duty?

Start with what you are carrying — and what might help you put some of it down.

After the Shift by Ellis Hartwell explores the work that follows nurses home: replaying decisions, carrying other people’s pain, and wondering how to find space for a life beyond the next shift.

Find your copy Read a short excerpt

Kindle · Paperback · Hardcover
Available on Amazon · By Ellis Hartwell

A nurse in navy scrubs sits quietly at home beside her work bag after a shift.
From Ellis Hartwell18 chaptersWritten around nursing realitiesBoundaries · Decompression · Next steps

Sound familiar?

You handed over the patients.
The day came home with you.

The bag is down. The shift is finished. But you are still replaying a conversation, checking a decision in your head, or finding that you have no patience left for the people at home.

Hartwell looks at burnout alongside compassion fatigue, moral injury, staffing pressure, and shift work. He then explores practical tools for thoughts, boundaries, decompression, and decisions about what comes next — while keeping working conditions in the picture.

Read a line from the book

A moment to pause.

“There is no test. There is no deadline. You have enough of both at work.”

Ellis Hartwell · After the Shift
Introduction · For the Nurse in the Parking Garage

The introduction invites you to read one chapter at a sitting, beginning with the problem that feels most pressing. The book is designed to be returned to, rather than rushed through.

Read the full book

Inside the pages

A place for the part of nursing
that comes home with you.

01

Name what you are carrying.

Explore how the book distinguishes burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury, with chapters on workload, emotional labor, and accumulated trauma exposure.

02

Look at the end of the shift.

Read about decompression, sleep around shift work, boundaries, and how work-related strain can spill into relationships at home.

03

Consider what comes next.

Explore asking for help and the return-to-purpose plan, including options to recommit, reshape your work, or leave.

After the Shift by Ellis Hartwell — book cover

The book behind the ideas

After the Shift

A Nurse’s Guide to Understanding and Recovering from Burnout

By Ellis Hartwell · Published by Tsunami Reading

  • Find examples shaped around nursing, handover, and rotating schedules.
  • Explore CBT-based tools in the context of demanding clinical work.
  • Read about boundaries without treating staffing problems as personal failures.
  • Make space for decisions about support, working conditions, and your future.
Choose your edition

Is this your next read?

A chapter at a time.
A place to begin.

For nurses who are still showing up and doing the work, but recognize the exhaustion, emotional distance, or difficulty switching off. Read a chapter at a time, or begin with the section that speaks to your current situation.

This is an educational self-help book. It does not replace professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Browse the contents

Find the chapter
that speaks to you.

Six parts and 18 chapters, followed by appendices and a glossary.

PART ONEUnderstanding the Wound
  1. Burnout Is an Injury, Not a Weakness
  2. Compassion Fatigue — The Cost of Caring
  3. Moral Injury — When the System Forces Your Hand
  4. The Biology of a Decade in Scrubs
PART TWOThe Job Inside the Job
  1. Staffing, Workload, and the Impossible Standard
  2. The Emotional Labor Tax
  3. What Trauma Exposure Accumulates
  4. The Identity Trap — ‘Nursing Is Who I Am’
PART THREEThe Toolkit
  1. The Loop at the Bedside
  2. Rewiring the Thoughts That Keep You Stuck
  3. Reconnecting With Meaning
  4. Boundaries Without Guilt
PART FOURRecovery Fundamentals
  1. Sleep and the Shift-Work Brain
  2. Decompression — Leaving the Hospital at the Hospital
  3. The Body That Carries You
PART FIVEPeople and Help
  1. Burnout at Home
  2. When and How to Ask for Help
PART SIXWhat Comes Next
  1. The Return-to-Purpose Plan

Take the next step

Give yourself a place
in the care you give.

Go beyond the excerpt. Explore the explanations, examples, and practical tools in the complete book.

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Before you choose

A few useful answers.

Does the book assume I should stay in nursing?

No. The final chapter considers recommitting, reshaping your role, and leaving. It makes room for a decision about your own circumstances.

Do I also need the workbook?

The book explains the ideas and tools. The separate companion, The Nurse Burnout Recovery Workbook, offers space for structured exercises and tracking. It is optional and purchased separately.

Can I download a PDF or EPUB here?

The digital edition is available through Amazon as a Kindle book. This website does not currently sell PDF or EPUB downloads.

The shift deserves an ending. Your evening deserves a beginning.

Find your copy on Amazon