Burned out and hate nursing

[RN1023]

Since I was a little girl, I have always wanted to be a nurse. I wanted to help people. I wanted to heal. Now 4 years out of nursing school, I HATE nursing with a passion. I am a med/surg nurse with a BSN.

Reasons I hate nurses (in no particular order)

1. Most days I feel like a pill-pusher. I don't feel like I make a difference.

2. Doctors feel they are perfect.

3. Patient satisfaction scores.

4. Patient sense of entitlement. (see #3)

5. Family at the bedside dictating what they want...like I am their personal servant. I have to comply (see #3).

6. Lack of appreciation mized with how much more work can they give us.

7. Nights, weekends, and holiday. I don't want to give everything I've got only to see no return in work satisfaction.

I don't want to be a case manager. I don't want home health nursing. I really want to be outside of the hospital. Quite honestly, I want to be away from people. I would be quite content to work on a computer and have email interactions. Preferably work from home. Any suggestions?

[whichone'spink, BSN, RN]

If you hate nursing then get out a sap and make room for someone who wants the job you may be a danger to your patients

Oh shut up.

Just because a nurse doesn't like her job doesn't mean they are a dangerous nurse.

[tokmom, BSN, RN]

I mop my own rooms. How do you folks think I feel about my current career path.

For the record my coworkers are a mix of ADN, BSN and MSN. We all have to mop our own rooms. Working bedside = Maid Work. We talk about our critical thinking skills, higher education etc. Yet here we are mopping floors, taking out the trash, taking out the laundry, wiping poop, fetching snacks etc. Not what I had envisioned.

I keep telling myself its only temporary until I meet minimum requirements for where I want to go.

Also would like to note, proper staffing would be nice.

You need to work somewhere else. In all my years of nursing I never took out the trash or mopped floors.

[RNMA15]

If you hate nursing then get out a sap and make room for someone who wants the job you may be a danger to your patients

Hating nursing does not necessarily translate into "Bad Nurse!" There are many great nurses who still don't like nursing for various reasons. People who know my dedication to my job get shocked when I tell them I do not really like what I do, because you couldn't tell! I am living off it now, as I chart my way out, and I am human enough to treat it with respect! My patients are in much better hands with me than with some "Born Nurses!" It doesn't mean we hate our patients, we actually have a lot that we like about nursing, but we don't feel challenged the right way, or do dislike a lot more stuff than we like about the career or particular job! Many of us are trying to leave, shift into another specialty, job or new career altogether sensibly, not blindly Asap as you suggest. Many who ask for help here need to be assured there's a sensible way out, and that its not abnormal, criminal or evil to feel that way. There are just as many nurses entering from other careers they failed to warm up to- thats part of life!

[sourapril]

Try public health

[RK694]

Nurses are slaves.

[RK694]

Nonsense. People have a right to to discuss the conditions of nurses; e.g., no sleep, unable to barely eat, on feet for 12 hours, can't go to the bathroom, blamed for everything by everybody, take orders - don't give them, harassed by the state boards, expected never to make mistakes while exhausted, hungry, hurting from being on feet, abused by management, patients, families, and other bullying nurses, and so on and so forth. They complain because they are unable to care for their patients as they know the patients should be taken care of.

[RK694]

Precisely. There is no correlation between the two what-so-ever.

[RK694]

Interesting, I've rarely if ever seen a master's level nurse working the floors. The higher the education, the less they want to be on the floors.

[RK694]

What's an ASC?

[RK694]

Why have you done this for 30 years?!?

[Anna S, RN]

We had voceras. A vocera reminds me of a police radio, when they have them clipped to their shoulder. A computer voice will say "can you take a phone call?" I HATED that voice.

One time I had a phone on each ear, one holding for pharmacy, one doctor in front of me wanting me to translate for him, the charge on the other side asking if I could take over care for an unhappy patient. Then I hear the vocera '"can you take a phone call?" (pulling hair out) REALLY?!? That was the beginning of the end of hospital nursing for me.

When I read this, I at first thought I had written it- I've been in an almost identical situation. Truly, it's insane. Only another nurse can understand.

[bugsmom925]

RN1023, are you from Michigan? You have took the words right out of my mouth. I feel the same exact way and looking back, if I had known then what I know now, would never have done this and this was a dream of mine. I feel sick every day I have to drag myself to work and endure 12 hour shifts feeling like this. I love my patients and they are my passion but we are bound by the magnet train and politics and doing more for less theory. I did not go to school to be a pillow fluffer or a legal drug pusher. However with this customer service mentality and money hungry hospitals, we are bound by the surveys and have gotten away from old fashioned patient care. Now the patients are dictating how we can treat them. It's like a spa now, not a hospital.

I am a three year nurse on a med surg floor and am anxiously looking every day to do something that I truly went to school for.