Life is too short to be this stressed

i've been an RN for 5 months and although it sucks, i'm glad you said a lot of the things i've been feeling so i know i'm not alone...

I agree...life is too short to be this stressed...started first RN hospital job in Jan and now thinking about quitting to go to a less stressed environment...I do not think hospital nursing is right for me...AT ALL..

you know i thought that the problem was me and that i wasnt doing enough to combat the stress that is floor nursing. the workload isnt just unbearable its unsafe and if laypersons really knew how unsafe no one would step foot in a hospital let alone camp out and get treated at one! its to the point where i do all the things you would tell your pts to do to combat stress and its NOT WORKING. the next step would be medication to deal. that is dysfunction to the n'th degree! it is a seriously unhealthy career hospital floor nursing. i wonder why it has been this way for so long?
i am planning on voting with my feet but the healthcare does not care about me. a nurse is a nurse too bad so sad. thats the feeling i get from mgmt. its sickening it really is.

"I feel like I'm not really living. I'm surviving work and then merely existing the rest of the time."


So sad. So true, me too. I think I will find another way to use my license. or just cut back to no more than 2 days a week as a floor nurse. Hope you find your way.

I'm a recent grad also wondering if hospital bedside nursing is worth the stress & abuse. One of the major lessons I learned during clinicals is, "now I know why there is a nursing shortage!" Having had other jobs, the contrast between those relatively well-paying, relaxed jobs, where you are not treated like a servant most of the time, and nursing, was just too stark a contrast for me.

I feel everyday at work it's a rat race. I feel on my floor ,we as a unit have to do more with less and that has a negative effect on patient care. I have been working 10 months on a med/surg floor, not sure I can keep it up.

So it's not just me. One of the things that's really stressing me out (on top of everything that's already been mentioned) is that I am so completely overwhelmed that I don't have time to stop and LEARN anything. I feel like I'm only really earning experience and wisdom through the bad things that happen due to my inexperience. This is not how it should be!

I'm not sure it's entirely about nursing. Some of the nurses on my floor are totally stressed and cry and quit and some are laid back and happy and hang for years.

I've wondered this too, but then I think, in what other profession do you so commonly hear about/see people crying? I've worked a dozen other jobs but have only seen the crying in hospital nursing. I think its the working conditions which are so routinely poor in hospitals, rather than nursing itself. I have not seen the tears/stress in non-hospital nursing jobs.

Nursing is my second career. I have an earlier degree in computer science and have worked as a programmer/systems analyst, project manager, and corporate trainer. Those jobs had stress, especially when a project was due to be finished, but NOTHING like nursing. I got to eat lunch, go to the bathroom when I needed to, and people acted a LOT more professional. If I was sick or took a day off, my work was still waiting for me on my desk the next day. What's more, if the person in the next desk took the day off, her work would still be waiting for her when she came back, and I wouldn't have to work twice as hard just because she was gone for the day. Why didn't I go back to it then after I took time off to be home with my kids? I hated finishing up the end of the day thinking everything I put my hard work into really didn't matter (well, training was actually pretty rewarding). I like making a difference for people, and that is what drew me to nursing and what still lifts my spirits when I leave at the end of the day (some days).

But there is a huge problem with the system, and it shouldn't be this way. Nurses are trampled by the administrators who really don't give a rip. When I am called by a begging charge nurse to work extra because the unit is short-staffed and I go in, all administration cares about is that the slot is filled -- it doesn't matter the next time that I work and I am stuck late charting and I really need to be home to pick up my kids. It's all about numbers and how they can get away with the bare minimum of staff. Then I don't get to be the nurse I want to be, I am just a person passing meds, getting people out the door as fast as possible when d/c orders come up, praying that no new admits come.

There are moments I love being a nurse because I am doing exactly what I went into nursing for, but there are many other moments that I feel like it is unappreciated slave labor. I cannot see myself working in a hospital in five years if conditions remain the same unless our economy is so horrible that I have no choice. I think I am a really good nurse, but these conditions just burn you out. The only way I can really manage it now is by working part-time instead of full-time. I need the money, but I know I will burn out that much faster if I work full-time. After summer, I hope to find another job to supplement my hospital job -- a job in a clinic or PRN in a nursing home (but that is probably just as bad as working in a hospital in terms of conditions-- can anyone weigh in on that??) There are days when I think working extra days as a waitress might be the answer!