Burned out and hate nursing

Guest343211 · Apr 29, 2013

I have a great manager, and I love the people I work with. I hate nursing.

Do you think if you found a position/area where you felt more challenged it would make a big difference for you?

multi10 · Apr 29, 2013

I agree with samadams8. Being challenged is key to loving nursing. Med-Surg is the worst, especially in 2013, because it's boring. Nurses run-run-run from room, to room, to desk, dealing with pharmacy, dietary, etc.

You have enough experience to transfer to ICU. It's a whole new world. The patients are typically intubated and no-one gives you, as the nurse, a hard time. You have two (2) patients per shift and learn a tremendous amount. It's never boring.

I suggest that you find a critical care position and put in your notice. Two weeks prior to starting your new job in critical care, go to Hawaii and soak up beautiful air and energy.

When you start your new job, you'll be refreshed.

Best of luck to you. Don't hate nursing.

tktjRN · Apr 29, 2013

Insurance company

edie1 · Apr 30, 2013

try.....a different area of nursing - i loved correctional nursing where the "patients" are inmates and they LOVE the nurses because they are the only ones who dont treat them like animals

try.....insurance - that is computer work and referrals, etc

try a va where everything you give can never be enough for those who put their lives on the line for us

the BEST thing about nursing is there are SO many opportunities - keep looking and you will find a fit :)

edie

RNtobeinSoCal · Apr 30, 2013

i hear what you're saying. maybe try a surgi-center PACU/recovery room? patients are gone within 30 minutes, family interaction is minimal. as long as your co-workers are good (and that's the tough part) you should be OK. it's high volume, high turnover, but not emotionally draining.

my colleagues & management in my last job made me seriously reconsider nursing, but we've all worked too hard & too long to give up. find the best place you can & hold on for dear life!

lugnutz · Apr 30, 2013

"Eh. Go back to school for some sort of IT degree then (although IT degrees are the same dime a dozen as nursing degrees these days). Informatics positions are hard to find and, at least in my area, pay substantially less than bedside so you'll be stuck having to pay off that masters on a smaller salary..if you find a job." quote from dirtyhippiegirl

"Yeah informatics is kinda old. Never see ads wanting RNs for that anymore, they just use regular IT folks now. You know it's all corporate now." quote from netglow

I don't find either of the above statements to be true at all. You can go to school for Informatics (I attend UC Denver) and you can choose to do a Certificate if you don't want to spend a ton of money on a Masters. The Certificate is only 5 classes. I do the classes all online as I am in Connecticut.

There are lots of informatics jobs in my area. They do come and go as far as when you are searching on sites like Careerbuilder, but if you go to the actual hospital website, there is usually an informatics job or two waiting to be filled. I got a job last October in a small community hospital without even having my degree yet and I was salary at $84,000/ annual.

In CT they are very strict about having clinical experience and jobs specifically state 3-5 or even up to 7 years clinical experience. They will not just fill the roles with IT people. IT has it's place, but Informatics does too. Informatics is only in it's infancy, it is far from old.

lmccrn62, MSN, RN · Apr 30, 2013

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?

I am sorry you are burned out. Unfortunately the regulatory bodies have made nurses feel this way. Employers and management are forced to pay mind to patient satisfaction which results in the sense of entitlement. Hospitals need to remain competitive and need all reimbursement possible.

Nurses make a difference everyday and you may not even realize the difference you have made. I often think if a patient I cared for about 18 years ago. The older gentleman had a craniotomy and was recovering in the ICU where I worked. His overly attentive daughter hovering over him. That night I had pushed Benadryl and the patient had a seizure. The daughter was beside herself was so upset. Her dad ended up doing well. Fast forward 7 years later one of the staff told me someone stopped by looking for me and they told her when I would be working and to come back then.

The next time I worked a woman stopped in asking for me. I really didn't recognize her but she explained what had happened and I remembered. She said her dad and her had thought of me often and she hands me a gift that the wrapping was tattered. She said she had gotten me this gift 7 years ago in thanks if all I had done that one night for her and her dad. While I only did my job it was how I made them feel. See we don't always know who we impact because most don't come back. But know we do make a difference in how we care for those who need us most. Good luck in finding something where you feel rewarded.

netglow, ASN, RN · Apr 30, 2013

It's corporate that makes the decisions now that EMR has been in place for several years in my area. No longer need for nursing go-betweens as everybody is literate, and nursing really has no power over things - sad but true. Nurses and the MDs do what they are ordered to by the evil master. Just about every provider has assimilated to the new rule.

Hey weren't you the one asking about how to get into the army today? Why leave an 84,000 desk job then? smh

(luv luv luv Lunah's blog, btw everybody should've been following her over these past few years)

mammasews · Apr 30, 2013

Try nursing infomatics. I believe it is a master degree. One of my instructors had that designation.

MomRN0913 · Apr 30, 2013

Research Nursing is great. :) I do phase I clinical drug trials. The other nurses and I constantly revel in the fact that we have it made compared to bedside or acute care nursing. We may make a little bit less than a hospital nurse, but trust me-it's totally worth it!
I would recommend looking into a specialty that is as far from the hospital as possible.

I've been wanting to do this forever but all the positions seem to require experience. How do you break into this field?

calivianya, BSN, RN · Apr 30, 2013

I don't know if anyone's suggested it, but have you thought about ICU nursing? I did my 440 in a MICU and I am a new grad only applying to ICU jobs. If I don't get hired in critical care I think I'm going back to customer service, seriously.

1. You're not a pill pusher. At the MICU I can't remember the last time I gave someone a pill... it was probably a couple of weeks ago. Awfully hard for a patient to swallow with an ET tube. You're more like a piggyback pusher... :)

2. We get a ton of residents, and they ask a lot of questions. They realize they don't know anything and are always asking nursing for advice... very gratifying! Last week I showed a resident how to measure gastric residual and talked about what acceptable tube feeding residuals are because he had no clue. He was very grateful. The experienced docs hang around and show us baby pictures. They all even took me seriously even though I was a nursing student and didn't have my BSN yet.

3. The patient's unconscious and isn't going to remember you anyway. :)

4. Same!

5. Generally, family is too confused and sad to understand what's going on if you have a really complex patient, and you just hear a lot of thank-yous. Families take one look at a ventilator, CRRT machine, etc. and just visit for a little bit and leave half of the time. It's hard for them emotionally to visit someone who's deeply sedated and hooked up to everything in the world.

6. There may be lack of appreciation from management, but ideally you're only going to have 1-2 patients and I have had a ton more free time in the ICU with my preceptor, taking on her full patient load, than I ever had in med-surg. There is a lot of free time, especially on nights, at the MICU I was in.

7. Unfortunately, can't argue with that one! But I loved coming into the MICU so much that I cried on my way home on my last day of clinical, so I can't say that the nights/weekends/holidays thing bothered me too much.

nursefrances, BSN, RN · Apr 30, 2013

i hear what you're saying. maybe try a surgi-center PACU/recovery room? patients are gone within 30 minutes, family interaction is minimal. as long as your co-workers are good (and that's the tough part) you should be OK. it's high volume, high turnover, but not emotionally draining.
my colleagues & management in my last job made me seriously reconsider nursing, but we've all worked too hard & too long to give up. find the best place you can & hold on for dear life!

I made the transition from Telemetry nurse to working in an ambulatory outpatient surgery center and I don't see myself ever going back to a hospital setting. I LOVE the surgery center (not affiliated with a hospital). There are some in very city, you just have to look for them.