i HATE my job. Does anyone else feel the same?

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Jenni811, RN

1,032 Posts

Specializes in Intermediate care.
OP I'm just going by what you say about yourself, and if you are really on the verge of physically attacking your patients or their families, please quit now. You are not doing them or yourself any favors by staying at your job.

No, i would never attack patients or familes verbally or physically. I like to THINK about it, and vent and curse about it when i get home. I like to vent to others who understand. When i come home and vent to my fiance, he just will look at me and be like "Oh. Ok. What should we have for dinner?"

I have better luck venting to my dog than to others who don't understand what its like. So I come here to vent. and vent to others who understand me, and can tell me im not a horrible person for thinking these things.

The lady i went off on that one day, ANY NURSE would have done what i did and majority would have probably done it alot sooner than me. I put up with it for 4 days and 12 hour shifts. I was fed up. Yes, looking back i should have requested not to be with that patient anymore to "share the love" with the others. But my charge nurse that day is a very touchy/feely nurse and she was like "I really truley feel you are making a connection with this family."....i put on a smile and did it. But i would never hurt anyone physically or verbally. I would never swear nor yell at anyone.

Would i tell them like it is? Of course, if it is needed. And any nurse should do that. We are advocates for our patients. She was getting in the way of me caring for my patient so i needed to tell her. Just the way it is.

I'm honest, i tell it like it is but i try to be respectful. I have the right to THINK what i want and vent when im away from them. there is alot in my mind i want to say to patients and families, but i don't do it. I come here to say it and get it off my mind. It makes me feel better. Try it sometime!!! Im pretty sure you are not 100% florence nightengale. Even Nurse Flo would not put up with some of the stuff we do. Enough said :)

Jenni811, RN

1,032 Posts

Specializes in Intermediate care.
OP, Have you considered critical care? I learned so much and loved it.

Alot of people ask me this. I have SERIOUSLY considered it. They require 2-3 years experience. i'll be at my 2 years this summer. We are in a MAJOR MAOR transition right now where everything is just a mess. No units make sense right now because Unit A has to be moved to unit B to build unit C. You get it...

So i'm kind of holding off to move units until this has all settled and we are in the new hospital. The critial care unit is going to be AMAZING!!! they have been showing us pictures of what is to come and my response is :up::up: (two thumbs up).

Then i see the unit we are moving to and my response is more like this... BYE BYE!!!

Jenni811, RN

1,032 Posts

Specializes in Intermediate care.
You have definitely head the nail on the head. I was an Orthopedic Nurse for two years, so of course the load was heavy, especially

because we were dealing with mainly hip and knee surgical patients. I had a patient once tell me to clean up her room. Mind you she had tons of visitors, food wrapping and just a mess everywhere. I look at her and told her my job was NOT to clean up her room or a mess that she allowed her visitors to make, she was at a hospital not a hotel and the only thing I will clean up is a path to her bed to do my assessment or give her meds...the other trash was irrelevant to me. I left the bedside two years ago and have done Patient Education and Case Management. I miss the "hands on" part of nursing, but would prefer to either do Peds or ICU if I ever had to return to the hospital. Med surg is definitely not what I want to do in regards to nursing, especially when the focus is not on providing quality care but being maid, slave, and down right disrespected. And unless you are truly unable to wipe yourself, I am not wiping your back or your front. Where are these patients dignity and self respect??

Oh dear. I don't understand how people do Ortho. We occasionally get overflow orthos (or if they have a cardiac condition then ortho unit refuses to take them). They are the most demanding patients in the world. I have no sympathy for their pain when they are like that.

I broke my arm in 5 places and had bones sticking out of my skin and i could STILL function in life and not act like a baby. Yea, it hurt but the world was not ending.

Jenni811, RN

1,032 Posts

Specializes in Intermediate care.
i cant stand most families. even with 24/7 visting nights gets less of it. i will get a cot for the visitor when that becomes the priority. seriously. i have actual patients to assess. ugh . and problems with the tv or wifi i have no idea how to handle almost any of them and wont waste time on it either .

HAHAHAHA that made me laugh. I absolutley "love" when there are issues with the TV and the wifi. Like i know how to fix it....im a nurse, not a technican. I can't even reach the TVs in the room cause they hang from our 2938190 foot high ceilings and im only 5'2. Do the math people...doesn't take an idiot to figure out i cannot reach it. And i will not climb on a chair or a ladder to fix your TV. i have sick people who need me.

Jenni811, RN

1,032 Posts

Specializes in Intermediate care.
I completely understand you. I have always worked in outpatient care, decided to go into nursing, now in my last semester and thinking I made a big mistake. I know I will never want to stay at the bedside, will do my bare minimum to get experience then run. I absolutely hate it. As previously mentioned, I have had a patient ask me to hand her her water two inches away from her, wipe her face, yet she can do fine eating and stuffing herself all without any help. I have no compassion for theses ppl, its just not in me. Maybe because I am not used to it, but I am outraged and shocked at the abuse nurses take! Since when is this ok? I have never seen this type of abuse in any other job field! Mangement does not stick up at all, even if you get physically HIT/KICKED, and people have come to think hospitals are hotels. This just sickens me, doesnt matter who you are/how sick you are, you cannot go around thinking you can treat others this way without some type of consiciences. Nurses are a big group, we need to band together and demand respect for ourselves. Patients do not act this way around doctors, I almost always see a completely 180 when the doctor comes in...
Yup!!! Agreed. nurses take such abuse, its sickening. Once had a FULL CODE confused/combative patient. She and her family wanted everything done. She was in full blown pulmonary edema. We needed to get an IV in her (for obvious reasons) but she is kicking us (kicked one CNA in the face), biting (tore the skin off a doctors hand), swearing, screaming. She is strong little lady too.

So..we had to hold her down to get the IV in. Now family is threatening to press charges because she got bruises on her feet from us holding her down.

ok 1) You wanted EVEYRTHING DONE for her. This means doing something like this. and

2) Your mom got those bruises from kicking the foot of her bed like a 2 year old in a temper tantrum.

gloryfied

106 Posts

I couldnt agree with you any more. I cant stand the place i am. but i will be leaving soon and thats all that matters.

well, what else is there to do that pays the same? looks are long gone for the high paying waitressing jobs and that was hit or miss! at nearly 30 i already feel way too old to go back to school for something completely different!i suck it up big time at work and try not to think about it. most of the time i find it pretty funny. i have cut back to nearly no ot and it helped a lot. now i only deal with it 3 nights a week. management and co workers are worse,imo. i can deal pretty well with most pts and smile and nod . if it is doable i dont get annoyed, i will wipe their face or their butt. but if i am busy with real poblems and get b@"&$?! at for not getting an ice cream fast enough , i get annoyed and angry! ugh

shermrn

147 Posts

You may be happier with more acute/critical care. Some of the best patients are the ones who are vented and sedated, then you really only have the family to deal with. Often times family members are so intimidated by the equipment and IV's and everything that they don't question too much what you are doing or what you tell them.

I was an ortho nurse for a couple of years on nights. It seemed to always happen that the doctor or a family member would come in the morning, ask the patient how their night was. Some patients would reply that the pain was terrible, they had not been offered anything all night. These were always the same patients who would decline to take pain meds despite my having encouraged and almost demanded they take something or allow me to reposition them, give them an ice pack, something. They would suffer through the night and refuse all help to make them feel better, then complain in the morning to the first person they saw.

Another thing that always bugged me was when I was a nursing assistant in highschool, I had a patient who would say "quite a little" when refering to someone having given him alot of help. When his family would come to visit they would ask how he was doing, he always smiled and would say how great the nurses and aids were and that we were doing "quite a little" for him.

joanna73, BSN, RN

4,767 Posts

Specializes in geriatrics.

It's so disappointing to see that many nurses have similar dislikes, myself included. Aside from AN, many nurses I know don't enjoy bedside nursing for the same reasons. At this point, I'm looking to change specialties and move to a different city entirely because I need a change. As I'm looking through various job postings, there are only a few that interest me. I don't really know what the solution is for any of us.

DoeRN

941 Posts

So..we had to hold her down to get the IV in. Now family is threatening to press charges because she got bruises on her feet from us holding her down.

ok 1) You wanted EVEYRTHING DONE for her. This means doing something like this. and

2) Your mom got those bruises from kicking the foot of her bed like a 2 year old in a temper tantrum.

If they press charges then if I was the CNA I would press charges against her for kicking me in the face. I wonder what the family would say to that.

I had a patient like this. He kicked the CNA in the stomach and then he started throwing stuff at the night shift nurse. I have a very commanding voice so I came with the Haldol and told him stop his behavior. I was giving him some IM haldol and he said he is calling the police because we are mistreating him. I handed him the phone and said go right ahead. And if you do I will tell them that you not only kicked 2 staff members, you were throwing things at us and tried to bite one of the nurses.

I'm still waiting for him to call the police.... And I barely heard a peep out of him the rest of the day. And this wasn't his first dose of haldol either.

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DoeRN

941 Posts

well what else is there to do that pays the same? looks are long gone for the high paying waitressing jobs and that was hit or miss! at nearly 30 i already feel way too old to go back to school for something completely different!i suck it up big time at work and try not to think about it. most of the time i find it pretty funny. i have cut back to nearly no ot and it helped a lot. now i only deal with it 3 nights a week. management and co workers are worse,imo. i can deal pretty well with most pts and smile and nod . if it is doable i dont get annoyed, i will wipe their face or their butt. but if i am busy with real poblems and get b@"&$?! at for not getting an ice cream fast enough , i get annoyed and angry! ugh[/quote']

I'm almost 40 and I'm going back to school for something different. I am determined to get out of nursing as fast as I can.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

joanna73, BSN, RN

4,767 Posts

Specializes in geriatrics.

I've considered a Masters in OT/ PT, but I'm not sure. I know quite a few nurses who have recently said they're looking into NP school. They've each worked 5-10 years at the bedside and have had enough.

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