A recent study in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation found as many as 48 percent of nurses working in a critical care transplant unit met the criteria for PTSD symptoms included upsetting dreams about a traumatic event, difficulty falling asleep, irritability or outbursts of anger, and upsetting memories about the event that arose against the person’s will. Rates of burnout among nurses in some specialties may be even higher.

High rates of burnout and PTSD in the nursing profession are likely to contribute to a high rate of nurse turnover, which ranges from 13 to 21 percent, depending on the region of the country. The south and west are expected to experience continued nursing shortages through 2030, according to a 2012 study in the American Journal of Medical Quality.

“We know PTSD is present, and it drives nurses away from the bedside,” Ms. Peterson said. “We don’t treat nurses very well, and the work environment is very challenging.”

PTSD and burnout are not unique to nurses; doctors, medical students and other health care professionals also suffer relatively high rates compared to many other professions. Organizations including the American Nursing Association and other medical societies are calling for more research into the topic, in the hopes of better identifying who is at risk. Effective treatments are also often lacking.

Dr. Mealer is studying resilience in nurses and said preliminary research is finding that psychological characteristics associated with resilience, such as humor, optimism and social support, can be taught to help nurses cope with the stresses of the job. “We approach resilience as something we can bolster with behavioral changes,” she said.

Such support never came for Dorothy Still or the other Navy nurses who were prisoners of war. She received an honorable discharge from the military shortly after the psychiatrist’s appointment. She married a naval officer and moved home to Southern California. She had three children and eventually returned to nursing. She spoke little of her experience for decades, but she began opening up in the 1990s and agreed to interviews with historians.

When she died in 2001, her family arranged for her to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Following the ceremony, the Navy Nurse Corps arranged for a Passing of the Flag in her honor. Although the ceremony is reserved for officers of a certain rank, her successors in the corps respected her ordeal and deemed her worthy of the honor.