Why is nursing such a horrible job?

Nurses General Nursing

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Customer service mentality and entitlement

swirlygirl

106 Posts

Because everything has become "customer service oriented." Nevermind that we don't have enough staff, or working medical equipment (such as BP cuffs or bladder scanner) but have you seen our brand new cafe with WIFI, marble floors in the newly renovated lobby and flat screen plasma TV's in the patient rooms?? Our manager recently put up a suggestion board on our floor for staff to suggest ways to improve care. There are about 30 very good suggestions hanging there that haven't been addressed and what do we get in return? An e-mail telling us that the male nurses and male CNA's on our floor are wearing too much aftershave. Complete lack of priorities from management.

Specializes in NICU, PICU, Peds, Pediatraic Home Care, Infusion.

I was interviewing for a position a couple of weeks ago and the manager sat there and told me that there is no longer a nursing shortage, new grads all over the place, "easy to train", wages no longer need to be so high now, were way too high due to the shortage-----really-----36 to 48 hours a week x's 20 years caring for critical, fragile patients--------he needs to pray he never finds himself or a loved one on a short staffed ICU under the care of an inexperienced RN.

ArwenEvenstar

308 Posts

Specializes in med-surg, teaching, cardiac, priv. duty.
I was interviewing for a position a couple of weeks ago and the manager sat there and told me that there is no longer a nursing shortage, new grads all over the place, "easy to train", wages no longer need to be so high now, were way too high due to the shortage-----really-----36 to 48 hours a week x's 20 years caring for critical, fragile patients--------he needs to pray he never finds himself or a loved one on a short staffed ICU under the care of an inexperienced RN.

Dang! I was told something very similar last year!!!! I approached my boss about a very meager raise (was hoping for maybe 50 cents more an hour!!) and was basically told that nurses were never paid much until the 1980's when the first nursing shortage hit, and then pay rates went up, and since then the rates have stayed up and nurses have become way too demanding and expect too much!!! Grrrr! Hmmm...I noticed you refer to the manager as a "he". Mine was a male too!

Being held to a standard of perfection that is unattainable given the workload and amount of responsibility. Emotional and verbal violence from doctors, administrators, coworkers and patients.

belgarion

697 Posts

Specializes in Med Surg.

Petty bickering, griping, back-stabbing, and an almost total lack of anything resembling teamwork and comraderie amongst ourselves. The martyr complex so many nurses absolutely wallow in. We are our own worst nightmares.

JC_Smith2009

26 Posts

I personally feel that nurses in general should be paid more. If you think about it there is an extreme danger to our licenses and nurses spend the majority of the time catching some errors the doctors make, spend most of the time administering life saving drugs to patients. To put up with the bs of some mean patients. It is very rewarding to help people, but in reality, we can take only so much and want some type of decent compensation. I am going to school now to become an rn and I looked around my area for new grads pay rate at local hospitals and they start out about 24- 30 per hour. I personally think that is good for the Dallas-Fort Worth region. I think lpn's get paid around 18-20 per hour. The NP's here get paid about 35+ per hour and as usual the CRNA's make a very nice salary. I think it is all what we want in it. I sometimes have my doubts, but knowing at the end of the day when I go home and I helped save at least one life, it will be all worth while. As we all know it, life does not carry a price tag nor money value. I am noticing more and more nurses becoming burned out and I certainly hope things change for the better for all of us. I may not have my license yet but I consider myself a part of the team. I hope that is ok.

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