ER Burnout

So after working two years in the same ER, I feel as though I'm finally reaching burn-out. I've worked every variation of shifts - all day light, all night turn, weekend only - and nothing seems to make any difference. My coworkers, for the most part, are decent people but a lot of them seem to feel the same way I do. Good people who I have looked up to, with years of experience, are leaving. To replace them, we're hiring people with no experience. We're too inadequately staffed to do things correctly. I'm terrified I'm going to make a mistake that will hurt someone. Last night I had two patients come in almost simultaneously, without prior notification by EMS, in flash pulmonary edema. One stabilized with BiPAP and a nitro drip, and the other with just the nitro but things could have gotten a lot worse easily. I feel like my nurse manager portrays the situation less than accurately to the ED director so he in turn thinks things are peachy keen for nursing. The place is a disaster waiting to happen.

Burnout is one of the major problems in my ER. We are always short RN's and Techs. We have nurses and techs leaving by the handful. It is nothing to see 25+ patients per RN in a busy shift. The management is not supportive at all, if anything happens it is always the nurses fault.

Where I have been working is always out of supplies, meds you name it. It is a place that is waiting for a disaster to happen and then everyone will go down with it and the administration will be no where around to stand up for thier staff.

I worked a shift recently that went to H*** in a handbasket and fast, the charge nurse had been a LPN for 3 years, just got her RN had it for 3 weeks, I was the senior nurse with 1 1/2 yrs experience, had 2 that had 6 months and to top it off had 2 orientees. Was a bad night several traumas, several codes, you name it I think that everyone knew our staffing and came in that night. I swore that I would never be in that position again.

Today is my last shift as an ER nurse at this facility, I can hardly wait for it to end. I am going to start doing travel nursing, hopefully it won't be as bad.

I figure that it is possible that my worst day at a different facility will be my best day where I have been at.

If you're getting the symptoms of burnout:
Fatigue even though you've slept for a million hours,
Irritablility,
Cynicism,
Impatience,
Indifference,
Numb,
extremely Low stress tolerance.... etc.

TAKE TIME OFF! You'll be back in the game afterwards.

It is nothing to see 25+ patients per RN in a busy shift. The management is not supportive at all, if anything happens it is always the nurses fault.