Do we need to take drugs.. in order to do our job?

Nurses General Nursing

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Recent posts have brought up the question.. is it legal to take mood altering medication while on duty? ... and " I am so stressed out , I am now on an anti-depressant medication".

I cannot think of any other profession facing this dilemma. Why are care givers driven to the point of self medication to perform?

Yes I never thought of putting dogs to sleep with their owners holding them.

And yes Chiggysmom..........correct. I would NEVER go into this field again unless it was in the "beauty business". When the CEO makes over 4 million, yes 4 million dollars and they cut our staff? Where is the problem here? Also the CEO had a 20% raise.

What other job can one do where one is spit on, scratched, yelled at, and have to be nice? I am not that nice anymore. Get on my case at work, abuse me too much and I open my mouth but in as nice a way as possible. Too many nurses take crap because they are worried about "getting in trouble". I once had a visitor, a healthy young woman ask me to get her some water? I don't think so. "The water fountain is out the door on your right". Believe me, the job gets easier when you focus on what is most important and let the unimportant family members who think they are so important, turn you in and complain. Now I am talking of the people that I have bent over backwards to help and yet it is still not enough. Can't please everyone but can help the ones who need the medical attention.

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Specializes in Oncology.
Oh, give me a break. As the poster who used the term "put on your big girl panties", I made it quite clear I was not talking about this kind of condition. I fully recognized that there are those that have disabling diseases that require the use of medication. Your situation (and many others) are very tragic and I hope to be lucky enough never to have to encounter this. I do hope you have found the help your daughter needs.

My point was there are also many people I have known thru the years that have absolutely no idea how to cope with everyday situations and the highs and lows of life that everyone of us experience. It would seem that people are only reading the words they want to read and not what was actually written. Being judgmental can go both ways.

Nascar Nurse,

How do you gain the knowledge and the skill to be able to cope with lots of stress? I honestly mean no disrespect at all to you, but you seem to come across as insensitive. People have varying personality bends, and I truly believe that some people just are not equipped to handle a great deal of stress and I don't believe that makes them inferior or a lesser person or even a lesser nurse because of this. I think people that came from more dysfunctional and chaotic back grounds (I can remember in nursing school our instructors telling us that nursing attracts for some reason a lot of people from dysfunctional backgrounds, IDK why that is?) are more able to handle a lot more stress because it's familiar to them. If you did not have a lot of stress growing up and you were catered to and pampered, it doesn't lend itself to familiarity with stress and chaos. Like I said, it doesn't make these people inferior, just different.

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Specializes in Oncology.
Mazy you are correct IMO. Some people here keep going on and on about how nursing employers need to change things. It is not going to happen. They use the "economy" as a means of controlling nurses. My thought is that ALL RN's who are working in management are obligated to work one day/week on the floor. That is my thought of the day.

I would vote for this! Never happen though!

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Specializes in LTC, Hospice, Case Management.
Nascar Nurse,

How do you gain the knowledge and the skill to be able to cope with lots of stress? I honestly mean no disrespect at all to you, but you seem to come across as insensitive. People have varying personality bends, and I truly believe that some people just are not equipped to handle a great deal of stress and I don't believe that makes them inferior or a lesser person or even a lesser nurse because of this. I think people that came from more dysfunctional and chaotic back grounds (I can remember in nursing school our instructors telling us that nursing attracts for some reason a lot of people from dysfunctional backgrounds, IDK why that is?) are more able to handle a lot more stress because it's familiar to them. If you did not have a lot of stress growing up and you were catered to and pampered, it doesn't lend itself to familiarity with stress and chaos. Like I said, it doesn't make these people inferior, just different.

Oh, you've pegged me wrong. I would not ever describe my background as dysfunctional. Although not perfect, I had nearly an ideal childhood. I had 2 parents that loved me, my brother and each other (they have now been married nearly 50 years and still enjoy just hanging out together). The rules could be strict (or so I thought back then), I wasn't spoiled but I did have most material things that my friends had. I wasn't the poorest on the block but I wasn't the richest either.

How did I gain the knowledge to cope with lots of stress - I don't have the answer to that. I guess I learned by example. There were some really hard and uncertain times growing up (diseases, unexpected deaths of close relative, job loss, etc) but I watched my parents plug along no matter what happened. It never seemed to be an option to permanently fall apart, although admittedly I watched a couple of temporary meltdowns. But, then up came the boot straps, we dealt with whatever needed dealt with and then moved on.

Am I insensitive - I don't think so, and I doubt you would believe that if you knew me in person. Maybe blissfully naive.

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Straying off topic with you........

This is really disturbing to me. To be 'coerced' into allowing a prospective employer to view your facebook page because otherwise you stand no chance of getting the job is so wrong I don't even know where to start.

Could be worse. There are divorce cases where the couple has to give each other their facebook passwords.

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Specializes in ICU, PACU, OR.

Everyone needs help now and then whether it be counseling, support system via family/friends, pharmaceuticals or a combination of all the above. Life is tough no matter what profession you are in. Everyone brings strengths and areas that need growth/maturity or experience when faced with experiences to get through. As you grow older hopefully you see through feedback from others, how you come across and how you cope. If, and that's a big if, you can take constructive criticism, are able to vent safely, can get support from your peers, know when to seek help, you can get through stressful situations. Life is stress-yen and yang, distress and eustress. If you don't have the acknowledgement of stress in your life, then you are probably dead now.

We all are tested everyday. We never get away from that. Educating yourself in how to cope, self-enlightenment, handling disruptive behavior, listening to peer's stories, reading Bible stories, reading Shakespeare, all help in seeing how others go through similar situations. Taking some of those helpful hints and coping mechanisms to try out help you gain confidence in what worked and what didn't. You and I aren't perfect, never will be. We will all have good days and bad days. Do some self-evaluation-sometimes you have to make some difficult choices about your career. Sometimes you have to take yourself out of relentless stress-filled environment. It's OK. You have to give yourself some slack sometimes. Nothing is permanent!

We feel the pressure of always being on our best game, and most times we are. Give yourself credit and ask yourself-did you do the best you could have done that day, that time, that situation? If you did give yourself credit for it. If you didn't and you know deep down you didn't, then brush it off and try again.

Little by little you'll grow, gain confidence, assertiveness, and be able to stand and deliver what you have to offer. You'll find that the things that caused you such stress weren't that bad and that sets the stage for you to survive the next challenge.

If you need to be on some drugs for depression, it may not need to be lifelong. Don't think that you are alone in this situation, there are many others in similar circumstances.

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Could be worse. There are divorce cases where the couple has to give each other their facebook passwords.

Yikes! But why???

So one can threaten the other with legal action over a possibly defamatory comment or something? The world's gone mad.......

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Specializes in ER preceptorship, almost a year on PCU..

I worked night shift and a lot of us had a PRN for insomnia. As for meds taken at work, I think it depends on the person and how it affects them... when your sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive, that can't be good for your patient, either. It's a high stress job, for sure, and coping strategies should always be utilized (in addition to meds, if not on their own). What made the decision for me was a back injury that got progressively worse over the course of 2 years, to the point where I could hardly lift my arms by the end of the shift without excruciating pain. When the pain got to a 9 or 10, I actually thought I was having cardiac issues and went to my doctor and had an EKG done. I was having sharp, cold chest pains, couldn't breathe, couldn't think -- panic attack symptoms. Not from stress alone, but a fight-or-flight response to the pain. It was impossible to continue safe care at that point without a low dose of a benzodiazepine, and safer to push through the pain and treat the body's response to it than medicating with narcotics.

I know my case isn't quite the same, but I believe someone with a severe enough response to stress to justify the use of benzos is in the same boat. An anxiolytic would sedate someone who doesn't need it, but for someone who does, it takes them back down to baseline where they're in a much better position to provide level-headed patient care. If anxiety problem is caused by the job then the person should find another job... but that's much easier said than done.

(For the record, I've gotten out of nursing and recently started a job as a trainer in the use of electronic health records. For the first time in almost 2 years, I can go an entire day without pain, wake up less than three times per night, and have no need anymore for benzodiazepines. While I'll miss patient care, I won't miss the hospital politics and unreasonable stress from things like understaffing, putting "customer service" before "providing healthcare treatment", and unrealistic expectations from management.)

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It would be interesting to see a study regarding usage of benzos. Meaning, in several job classifications. Police are stressed and are they taking them? What about teachers? Or high tech software engineers? Perhaps the usage of these meds are in many fields of work. I also wonder why our hospital has never done any random drug testing. Possibly because they would get a lot of positives.

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I've been a Ronin healthcare worker for over 20 years in the military, med surg, telemetry, long term, registry, and behind a chair. Never had the urge to take drugs to do my job no matter how stressful it got. I guess I was lucky to have parents who weren't crack heads. I was lucky growing up during the "Just say no" slogan campaign by Nancy Reagan. All my childhood friends/relatives never did drugs and I stayed the F away from those clowns back in high school and college who did drugs(losers). Yeah, I'm square, but atleast my dopamine receptors are intact. Oh, when I first put on my BDUs and scrubs, only the dedicated got in this profession. Now EVERYBODY (along with the druggies) wants to be a nurse. Yeah, Im skeptical and I might be "hatin" but there's truth in what I'm saying.

Last but not least, my license feels really safe with crack heads counting meds.

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I am not sure if dopamine receptors are influenced by benzos?

You are fortunate to have good coping skills. I do not think many of these posters had crack head parents. Just sayin.

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Specializes in critical care, PACU.
I've been a Ronin healthcare worker for over 20 years in the military, med surg, telemetry, long term, registry, and behind a chair. Never had the urge to take drugs to do my job no matter how stressful it got. I guess I was lucky to have parents who weren't crack heads. I was lucky growing up during the "Just say no" slogan campaign by Nancy Reagan. All my childhood friends/relatives never did drugs and I stayed the F away from those clowns back in high school and college who did drugs(losers). Yeah, I'm square, but atleast my dopamine receptors are intact. Oh, when I first put on my BDUs and scrubs, only the dedicated got in this profession. Now EVERYBODY (along with the druggies) wants to be a nurse. Yeah, Im skeptical and I might be "hatin" but there's truth in what I'm saying.

Last but not least, my license feels really safe with crack heads counting meds.

Quality post. A+++ Would read again. Really contributed to the discussion.

In all seriousness, we aren't talking about crack heads or druggies. We are talking about people who have to take prescription medications to cope with work. I would hope that a professional of your standing would be better able to communicate their ideas without resorting to a litany of slang like losers, squares, druggies, crackheads, and clowns that do nothing to contribute to the discussion.

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