Burn out...

Mhsrnbsn · Aug 12, 2016

Look for a job with an insurance company as a nurse! You at many times can work at home in your pjs and have very minimal patient contact. Once in a while you have to reach out to patients regarding different aspects of care they received. There's also quality control risk management. I'll be honest dealing with the "public" (patients) can really suck sometimes. And as people are getting sicker living longer and getting more complicated coupled with the beleif health care is a customer service sector it makes it really hard to tolerate people sometimes. I get it I honestly do. Sometimes I find my twelve hour shift as punishment if I get a patient that rubs me the wrong way. Burn out is real, it happens, but the important thing here is you recognize this is an issue and you can do things to rectify the issue. Best of luck! I'm going to school for nurse practitioner... I feel like id be happier in that role since I still get patient contact... But it's breif :up:

ms.shellie · Aug 12, 2016

Than you for the input Mhsrm . . .hadn't thought of insurance but will start checking into it.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Aug 12, 2016

Looking for comments/advice from the seasoned nurses. . .I'm a second-career nurse, post divorce in 2012. I've done 1 year med-surg, 1.5 year inpatient psych and 2+years home health psych nurse. I'm great at assessment, case mgmt, working with MDs, charting details, have saved a few lives, and very compassionate. BUT, I highly suspect I have compassion fatigue and am burned out!!! My first career was designing children's books, but after the divorce moved to smaller town and needed job security. . . Hence nursing school. I love my patients and certain aspects of nursing but I'm feeling like I want to throw bricks at something right now!!!LOL But seriously feeling like a fool for going into nursing, so burned out after 4.5 years. . . I'm now 57 and need a break but am afraid if I do, it will be very difficult to re-enter. A thought I'm having is travel nursing but don't know if I can travel since I've been off the inpatient scene for 2 years and doing home case mgmt. ADVICE PLEASE!!!

If you think you might like to travel, get back into the inpatient setting. Is psych still your thing? Or is it time to consider a different specialty? (Psych or home care either one would have me tearing my hair out! The fact that you're doing both . . . Yikes!) With that one year of Med/Surg experience, you have the basics and can probably craft a resume to get you into any specialty you're interested in trying.

I've been burned out a few times. Sometimes just changing shifts is all you need. Sometimes you need to change jobs in the same specialty -- from step-down to ICU, for example. From MICU to SICU or CCU. Sometimes you need to change scenery completely -- the hospital across town, for example. Maybe OR nursing will be your new thing. You probably won't be able to travel doing home case management, but I'm not familiar with that, so maybe I'm wrong.

I think travel nursing would be the perfect way to find out where you want to live in your retirement years.

Marisette, BSN, RN · Aug 16, 2016

Hi. I feel your pain. Perhaps, a change of employment would make a difference for you. I tried that, and I did not find it to be helpful. You have to really think and figure out the cause of your burn out before you make your next move. Burnout can be caused by multiple factors. For me it was the unrealistic expectations of my previous employer in regards to meeting patient demands and quality goals set forth by my employer and medicare. The long working hours, and difficulty getting time off did not help either. I changed employers and find my new employer expects me to meet the demands of unrealistic demanding patient's. I feel that Working healthcare is like working McDonald's with the added disadvantage of enormous responsibilty for our customers. People order healthcare services and goods and expect healthcare providers to provide services and solutions to solve every issue in their life, the magic pill, potion or cure and they demand fast service, take out if possible. Well, it does'nt exist. We spend so much less in education, and prevention of disease. We created a society dependent on pharmaceuticals with little regard to personal responsibility. Heaven forbid I tell a patient to try exercise, water and fiber for constipation. The patient will demand the stool softner with the stimulant, "only thing that works". The public demands services, magic cures and so on and healthcare organizations compete for the $$$ brought in by providing these services. I'll get off my soap box, but as you may see, it's unlikely that if this is your issue, moving from one employer to the other will resolve burn out.

Try disengagement. Work to meet your personal needs and goals outside the work area. Focus on you, your family, your hobies and try to spend as little time in the work place, as possible, just enough to meet your needs. Don't work overtime. Don't go overboard trying to please patient's or employers. Of course, it's challenging. We spend so much time at work. I don't think burn out is a phase, easily cured by changing employers, or taking vacations. Now, I take the feeling of burn out seriously. I know it can lead to making poor decisions that may impact my way of making a living. It's difficult for nurses to find employment in various states, even more difficult after turning 50 or older. It's not practical to allow nurse burn out to end your career. Unless, you can afford early retirement, pursuing a new career, taking lots of time off... Good luck. Please do get back to me when you figure it out.