What is the major reason nurses leave?

Nurses General Nursing

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What do you think is the major reason nurses leave the profession out of these?

1.) Nurse to pt ratio without accounting for pt acuity

2.) Scheduling of staff

3.) Nurses treatment of one another (Management's treatment of staff, etc)

4.) Pay (or lack thereof :rolleyes: )

5.) Inability to provide the pt care desired due to administrative requirements.

All responses are valued! Thanks!:wink2:

I totally agree about too many chiefs. Isn't it amazing that , generally speaking, none of the policy makers could actually do the jobs if their lives depended on it? I love a business major telling me how my ER needs to operate when he wouldn't know the difference between an MI and a UTI.

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I totally agree about too many chiefs. Isn't it amazing that , generally speaking, none of the policy makers could actually do the jobs if their lives depended on it? I love a business major telling me how my ER needs to operate when he wouldn't know the difference between an MI and a UTI.

I agree with this as well. The people who determine the staffing levels and slam short staffed floors with simultaneous admissions in order to meet their targets do not know even know what an MI or a UTI is...or the difference in acuity between an unstable GI bleed and an elderly patient who is stable and awaiting nursing home placement.

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Hello Noahm,

So you are in the UK? You have socialized medicine there do you not? I am curious as to what you think of it.

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I left nursing because I herniated two disc in my neck. My last two 12 hour shifts in ICU I could not lift my right arm above my shoulder and had to wrap my left ankle and used a brace as i could not bear weight. I had had an MRI the week before. I could not say when I hurt my neck so worman's comp was out of the question. I called my supervisor and told her I could not lift by Doctor's order. They put me on 3 month leave of abcesnse and fired me. I have not worked in 18 months. What a way to end a 31 year nursing career. I am poor but happy. God has released me from nursing and I place my trust in him. Social Security turned me down three times and I have an advacate to be with me at the hearing. I have chronic pain after the surgery and I am still on pain meds. I will never go back to patient care. All the long 12 hour shifts and the lifting took its toll. I pray to God I get social security disability. Nursing was a love hate relationship and I can relate to all that responded to this link.

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What do you think is the major reason nurses leave the profession out of these?

1.) Nurse to pt ratio without accounting for pt acuity

2.) Scheduling of staff

3.) Nurses treatment of one another (Management's treatment of staff, etc)

4.) Pay (or lack thereof :rolleyes: )

5.) Inability to provide the pt care desired due to administrative requirements.

All responses are valued! Thanks!:wink2:

i think it in my opinion isnt just one reason as one could be dealt with mentally etc - however with all rolled into one it gets overwhelming and people end up frustrated an leaving. i could put them into order of significance for me - 1-5--2-4-

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TwoTrees2 is pretty right on with that list.

I've got 5-6 years left and looking for another line of work to do when I retire from nursing.

CNA does NOT represnt the nurse, it supports the hospital because without the hospital they can't generate $$$$. Do you know how much the Ann DeMoro makes, the head of CNA about 200K a year, the union reps about 98K.

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If I were to leave it would be do to management not giving a darn in what we do. I am a unit manager and so frustrated. When I relate a problem to DON or administrator I am told to fix it. The problem is ,that I have tried to fix it, that is why I am coming to you!! To me ,were I work the above management does not own ownership/leadership. Just their to do a minimal job. If things go wrong the unit manager gets the blame. Pass the buck that is what it is all about! I fix, chase problems! However I have a job to do other than this. I am frustrated I help with the problems and have a hard time to finish my job which is PPS assessments. If I do not get this done, we do not get paid. The other reason would be not having enough time to do proper patient care. The other reason would be too many bosses contradicting what goes on. For me would be all above except pay!!

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Simply put, nurses are paid below the reservation wage (the level at which too many would have reservations about the job at that wage) because we buy into the concept that we are 'called' and being called has a value of its own.....

.....Eventually, it will HAVE to dawn on TPTB that creating environments that retain such nurses is cheaper than endlessly replacing them.

....That is the value of having to pay full price for a commodity; you also have to respect it. Or more to the point, the bottom line is really the bottom line, or, as they say, money talks.

~faith,

Timothy.

I have to disagree.

This past summer, I took a very lucrative travel contract. The unit was supposedly beyond desperate.

I was paid $54.00 per hour, and would get approx 10 hrs overtime a week @ $81./ per hr. I received a very nice, upscale furnished apt. Housewares, linens, untilities, phone and cable were paid by my agency. My contract specified that I was to get one week off paid in the middle of the contract. The agency was to provide me with a plane ticket, at no cost to me, to fly home for that week. I received $400. for travel expenses to drive the few hundred miles to job location. Completion bonus for 13 weeks was $2000.

I was told I could extend my contract at this facility indefinitely.

My contract and compensation were the subject of conversation among the recruiters at my agency. Who knows how much $$$ they would be getting? I had the feeling they were all lighting cigars, and slapping each other on the back.

To top it off, the facility is in city where I had already done several contracts. I am familiar with the area, and most of my family lives only 1.5hrs away.

I could not believe my good fortune. I had thought wages this high were a nursing urban legend.

When I added up how much I would make over the contract, I was giddy. Cha-ching!

When I got there, I found a miserable, crumbling, filthy hell-hole of a unit where pt care means nothing, falsifying documentation all day long is the routine. I had never seen such a miserable, hateful bunch of who-gives-a-damn coworkers or malicious mgmt in my life.

I saw cockroaches crawling on supplies. I was expected to sign off on tx, assessments, and enviromental controls which I knew had not been done. When I brought my concerns to a manager. I was laughed at and told I needed to "play ball." When I continued to object, I was basically told "You'll never work in this town again." I broke the contract and left after a week.

I called a nurse I know whom I like, but to put it nicely, I will say she is not a very moral or ethical person. She took over the contract.

Yes, I did report the things I'd seen.

For what I was getting in total compensation, this facility could have paid for four reg staff RNs, a clean up crew, some pest control, and even some hand soap (which they didn't have).

That was last summer. This week, I got a call from the manager who had basically told me "you'll never work in this town again" asking me to come work for the company again at another unit. I was incedulous. I asked her "what about the situation last time?" She said that it was all "water under the bridge" and that I could come back and work for her anytime.

Needless to say, I declined.

I called the colleague I had referred and asked her if anything had changed. She laughed and said "just the staff."

These awful people never learn. They don't give a damn and don't care to learn. Obviously, they are spending ungodly amounts of money on travelers, and staff turnover. They could spend a lot less and provide an environment where safe, legal, ethical care could be provided, if they just gave a damn, or had even a small amount of respect for pts and nurses. But they don't.

(For legal reasons, I will not respond to PMs asking for the name or location of this facility).

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There is a term for this, that I just can't quite call to mind. It refers to being held responsible for a lot of things while at the same time being fairly well powerless to change things that need to change.

Perhaps "scapegoat" or "whipping boy/girl" ???

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I called my supervisor and told her I could not lift by Doctor's order. They put me on 3 month leave of abcesnse and fired me. I have not worked in 18 months. What a way to end a 31 year nursing career. I am poor but happy. God has released me from nursing and I place my trust in him. Social Security turned me down three times and I have an advacate to be with me at the hearing. I have chronic pain after the surgery and I am still on pain meds. I will never go back to patient care. All the long 12 hour shifts and the lifting took its toll. I pray to God I get social security disability. Nursing was a love hate relationship and I can relate to all that responded to this link.
Boy can I ever relate to you, I have DDD, DJD, and fired ( but not for a disability reason) All those years in LTC dungeons,took its toll . I guess weve been chewed up and spit out, only to find out we now have to FIGHT to get our Social Security Disability benefits. BUT, I agree that it is worth it to at last be out of the dungeons of LTC. Miss my sweet little old folks and my some of my fellow nurses, cant say the same for management!:devil: :rolleyes:
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Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.
I left nursing because I herniated two disc in my neck...... I had had an MRI the week before. I could not say when I hurt my neck so worman's comp was out of the question.

I would like to point out that management might just tell you that W/C is out because you cannot pinpoint an exact event/injury. Management is "NOT THE BOSS OF W/C"

I don't know how it is in TX, but here you don't have to prove an exact moment in time. Management may also tell you that you have only 48 hours (Like I was told) to get checked. Again here that is UNTRUE. It was 3 months! My lawyer -who I did pay a LOT of money- told me that's how they play the game, so their premiums don't increase.

I don't know if your 18 months out of work is too long, but you may have a case for wrongful dismissal or ADA violation. My lawyer gave me a free 1 hour consultand it turned out well for me. Apply for Social Security disability and call them every couple of weeks to see where your application stands. See if your retirement system has a medical disability clause. Don't roll over anyone.....we need them to realize what toil this work is taking on our bodies.

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Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

Claim Lifecycle Information

Here you go it's 30 days in TX ......to notify your employer.....

You have the responsibility to send a completed claim form (DWC-41) to the Division of Workers' Compensation (DWC) within one year of the date you were injured or within one year of the date you first knew that your illness might be work related
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