New Grad - Burnout

[bxh5164]

Hello everyone. I would appreciate your advice. I was a new grad in May. I worked at a hospital for a year and a half before I graduated as an aide and got a job promised to me in April. I started working immediately after passing my boards. I chose to do med surg because that's where I worked as an aide, although my real interest was critical care. I figured I would do my time, learn some skills, and then move on. My floor is BUSY and understaffed. Lots and lots of new nurses, about 10 to be exact. Most of the time I get report from people who have even less experience than me and spend most of my shift correcting their mistakes. The other day they left me and one other nurse, two weeks off orientation, on the floor and one aide. I spent my night finding errors in orders and dumping foleys that hadn't been dumped all day. Find that no blood sugar checks were done on a diabetic who is npo. Bottomed out. Admission after admission and eventually they called in help for us. It's stressful. I work with a doctor who doesn't return phone calls, doesn't like me, and never listens to my concerns. It's scary. I have no one to turn to for help because everyone else is new too. I am feeling burn out already. I feel myself complaining all the time and that's not me. I get report from people straight off orientation and everything is a disaster and I just get frustrated right at the beginning of my shift. The aides won't answer call bells and take people to the bathroom so not only do I have 6 patients but I am also providing primary care for a lot of them. Advice please. I go into work 40 minutes early to get started and read about my patients and I leave about an hour late, sometimes more because I am charting.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

I chose to do med surg because that's where I worked as an aide, although my real interest was critical care. I figured I would do my time, learn some skills, and then move on.

Ah. First mistake! Hindsight is 20/20. I'm one of the few people who feels that med/surg can be bypassed if you have other pressing interests. In nearly a decade of nursing I've never set a foot on a med/surg floor. I'd really like to avoid that type of nursing for the rest of my career if I can help it.

Now that you have been on this floor about 8 months, I would stick it out for another 4 months to accrue a solid year of experience. Once you have this golden year of experience, my advice is to transfer to a different floor or seek employment elsewhere. Either way, you will be more marketable with the 1 year of med/surg experience.

Good luck to you!

[iPink, BSN, RN]

What a difference from going from aide to RN on the same floor. You now see the difference. You get to experience what the RNs went through when you were an aide on the floor.

I agree with previous poster, you are almost at the one year mark. There is light at the end of the tunnel, so stick it out. I too was on a very busy and often stressful PCU (or ICU stepdown) floor. I felt the "burn" around the five months mark but knew I wouldn't get anywhere with less than one year experience.

At one year, I ended up transferring to a specialty/unit I love and plan to be in for a long time. I no longer feel burnt out. Get your experience then get out of there. A better unit can make all the difference.

Sent via iPink's phone using allnurses

[dishes, BSN, RN]

The conditions you describe increase the chances that a patient will experience a preventable sentinel event. Send an email to your manager with your concerns (keep a copy for your records). Ask the manager to involve risk management and human resources. For the sake of patient safety and staff retention, the unit should be stabilized, possibly by moving some experienced staff from other units.

[Libby1987]

Why won't the aides answer call lights or toilet patients? Refusal or swamped themselves?

[bxh5164]

Both. They are tired and burn out themselves so they just try to avoid them. I was medicating someone and watched an aide sit at the nurses station while a bell was going off

[Libby1987]

I'd have to first know if they're capable and then I would give direction. Capable or not, both require action on your part. Which sucks that they either don't perform or admin understaffs them but they either don't have a second to catch their breath or they are under performing. Learning how to lead is a skill in itself and required to maintain safe care.

[sallyrnrrt, ADN, RN]

heck personally I would check out icu or ER, even recovery room (all forms of critical care)......if you were to stay at the same hospital, I do not think it would look like job hopping.......approach each manager, with something like, " I am currently working med surgery, learning a lot , but my heart yearns for critical care".....if you have an opening coming up, please consider me........

I loath MS, and have been able to avoid it for 42yrs, of my 42.5yr career......but that is just me..........my hat is sincerely off to nurses that are good med. surg nurses.........they have more tallent than me :)

[mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN]

Many of the things that you are describing are conditions that I would report via our safety system (computer documenting safety concerns) Something bad is going to happen and if you have been alerting the higher ups, it is on them.

[CriticalCareRN1]

Ah. First mistake! Hindsight is 20/20. I'm one of the few people who feels that med/surg can be bypassed if you have other pressing interests. In nearly a decade of nursing I've never set a foot on a med/surg floor. I'd really like to avoid that type of nursing for the rest of my career if I can help it.

Now that you have been on this floor about 8 months, I would stick it out for another 4 months to accrue a solid year of experience. Once you have this golden year of experience, my advice is to transfer to a different floor or seek employment elsewhere. Either way, you will be more marketable with the 1 year of med/surg experience.

Good luck to you!

This gives my method of madness of holding out for that ICU experience more credence, because I know me. And, if I were having to deal with the conflict of patient safety that you are dealing with on a regular basis, it would burn me out quick. My heart, like yours, is for the ICU. I have no desire to work M/S because of my personality type. I want my two high acuity patients, a CNA (if needed), and that is it. Hats off two those who love M/S. There is a place for everybody, and M/S is not the place for me. Plus, for new grads like me, like another person stated, you don't want to look like you are job hoping, so making sure to pick the right hospital on the first try, where you know you have room to grow is very important to me--and not just taking that first job that accepts you. I've moved around so much, and now am being very picky because I want stability now. Like another person mentioned, see if the ICU units at your hospital will consider taking you on. You might as well try travel agency with all the experience you have endured so far. They might even assign you a small ICU experience. It never hurts to ask. The worst they can do is say no. Good Luck!!

[BSNbeauty, BSN, RN]

Start looking for another job now. I would not even wait another minute let alone four months !

[tokmom, BSN, RN]

Med/surg is always made out to be the bad guy, but it's not med/surg that is the problem. It's the bean counters that understaff med/surg that makes it damn near impossible at times. I have worked med/surg most of my nursing career and I can tell you the difference is game changing.

Before you run to another unit, check out the happiness of the nurses, the manager, and staffing. If the bean counters understaff your floor, what are they doing to other departments? You could be jumping from the frying pan into the fire and leaving to a better staffed facility may be your only option.