I finally see that my unhappiness, my frustrations are not nearly
all my fault. I have been a victim of the age-old disrespect and maltreatment heaped upon women and upon nurses by Admin
types and by doctors from way back. :angryfire:madface:
I feel I have wasted my life by having stayed in Nursing, although I know I have been a very good nurse, have positively influenced students, have helped many patients and families, have supported
my family and myself, have been a good citizen, and have prepared
for retirement as best I could. :thankya:
I see that my frequent job boredom, thus frequent job changes, does not lie completely with me. It is the circumstances under which I've had to work that have eroded my happiness and my confidence, not to mention limited my pay and curtailed my productivity in general life.
What a sap I have been!
Now, what to do about it. I'm stuck for a while because of finances and retirement issues. I feel I must continue where I am until the time I can retire. It is not a pleasant feeling. But I sure have some plans on how I will spend my life after that! :balloons: :biggringi :smiletea: :smiley_aa
Do any of you feel this way?
What is wrong with us that we stay in these abusive situations? Of course, a lot of us don't. We get out of Nursing altogether or we find jobs that don't endanger us, our patients, or our licenses and all that we have worked so hard for so long to achieve.
My hat is off to nurses :pumpiron:who lead the way in developing staffing ratios, in getting rid of mandatory OT, in making conditions tolerable for themselves and safe for patients, and who strive :smiley_abto develop collegial relationships with physicians and Admin, to replace the outmoded, paternal, often evil relationships we have traditionally had with them, although I personally have had mostly decent relationships with doctors and bosses - as best I recall, anyway.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what nurses and nursing are about.
I have been a nurse for almost exactly a year now. I am also looking for a different path. I have reapplied to retail stores for work until I find something that suits me better. I am already burned out of the way that administration, physicians and other nurses treat the staff. My graduation present from a BSN program was that I moved back into my parents house. I don't know of anyone in my graduating class that supports themselves. Everyone either has a roommate or is a married. This is what I have to show for a bachelors degree and working OT?
I have been a nurse for almost exactly a year now. I am also looking for a different path. I have reapplied to retail stores for work until I find something that suits me better. I am already burned out of the way that administration, physicians and other nurses treat the staff. My graduation present from a BSN program was that I moved back into my parents house. I don't know of anyone in my graduating class that supports themselves. Everyone either has a roommate or is a married. This is what I have to show for a bachelors degree and working OT?
Unless you are working as an extremely low-paid school nurse or doc's office nurse, why is your pay so low? Are you over-burdened with loans or other debt? Nothing wrong with living with your folks for a while, until you get on your feet. Why are you burned out on Nursing? I hope you find something you like better, in or out of the field. :balloons:
How about working to improve the situation so that the profession can flourish and humanity can receive good nursing care?
Perhaps the types of jobs you have been seeking are the wrong types of jobs for you. Perhaps you should leave nursing altogether. But maybe, there are other types of nursing career paths -- ones dedicated to helping nurses, or ones in a completely different role or setting -- that could build on your nursing skills to improve the situation in some way.
I certainly don't know your job history or the specifics of your situation. But I have seen many, many nurses on this site discuss their unhappiness with nursing. When they talk about their previous jobs, they all sound alike to me. They change jobs -- but always move to a job very similar to the job they just left -- jobs with the same problems that caused them to leave their old job. It's as if they fail to learn from their past experiences and keep making the same mistakes in choosing a new job.
Have you tried a variety of types of nursing in a variety of differnet settings? Or have your jobs all been pretty similar to each other?
Good luck to you with whatever you decide to do with your life.
Hi, llg, yes, I have worked in lots of different specialties over the past 3+ decades as an RN and haved mostly loved or at least enjoyed my jobs, at least for the first few years I held them.
But this book opened my eyes to some things about Nursing that I hadn't realized before - for instance, the story of an OR nurse whose arm required casting after the surgeon, in a fit of infantile rage, assaulted her during the operation - patient was awake, too.
It reminded of the docs who have been less than controlled and civil and upright toward me, and of those who have made sexual advances toward me in my younger days.
My own experiences have not been as bad as the author writes about. I have mostly, as I recall anyway, had pretty good times in Nursing, at least from the docs. Nursing Admin is always a butt pain to one degree or another, as are some coworkers. No job is perfect but I have been pretty lucky, compared to what the book portrayed.
As far as leaving - I can't for a few years, due to monetary and retirement issues. But once I hit that magic age, I might do newborn nursery if I can get it. I've always wanted to do it, just haven't had the chance yet. They'll probably think I'm too old but I am on a self-improvement program now to lose wt and get shapely again. :pumpiron:So who knows what the future holds? I've also thought about becoming an agitator and spending my older years getting other nurses' eyes opened and then all of us "visionaries" contacting Senators so we could advance the cause of nurses effectively.
I love what I do. I just don't always love where I'm doing it.
My problem is I am physically beaten down. I'm not exaggerating. I'm sure that 24 years of night shifts haven't helped. But when I think that I have another 20 years (or more) to work, I don't think I can hold up physically. I have no energy. I am in constant pain. Hell, I hurt in places I didn't even knew existed. I don't see it getting any better any time soon, either.
Specializes in med surg, oncology, outpt and hospice.
I read most of the replys and the initial post. I have been a nurse for 11 years. I LOVE:heartbeatwhat I do. I am not saying I love my job, actually I do right now. But I have worked places where you wanted to scream and run out the door:stone, ifact I have done that too:sofahider. When that happens I have to reassess why am I doing this? Am I doing it for what I get out of it or am I doing it for the patients I serve ?
Just about that time I would have a patient call, come to the place where I worked, or I would go into their room and someone would say "thank you " That is why I do this, for the patients. Even when they are making me feel like I've been beat up:trout:. Some how, someone always makes me feel good about what I do.
I love:heartbeat:redpinkhe:1luvu::loveya:being a nurse:yelclap:.
I definately do not do it for the money, the doctors, the administrators, or even my co workers. I do it for the patients who I can and do help.
I am not a nurse yet...rather just another 2nd year ADN student who is trying to scrape enough to get by for the next year....
BUT, I work as a Tech....do I feel overwhelmed? at times. Do I think I should be paid more/have better staffing? SURE, of course...but I can't imagine any better feeling than when I show up in a room and the patient goes "Oh, you were so nice yesterday, when I was throwing up, yelling at you, screaming bloody murder, etc....I'm sorry." Taking care of someone else's family is the best thing I can do, and I learn a lot from every one of my patients everyday....even if it's just "I NEVER want to be a patient like that."
My long term career goal is to become a nurse educator....I know it's a long ways off, but I have that set firmly in my mind.......nurses can serve in so many different ways....don't write off the profession or go "well, I can work in LTC or Acute care...." So many people need nurses.......and we miss everyone.
Haven't read the book. However, nursing is a toxic profession. I have been a bedside nurse for over 23 years. As of this week, I have left the bedside to work in an insurance office.:biggringi Too much politics, discounting of nurses' health, feelings, seemingly sometimes of our very human-ness, has pushed me away. My daughter who is an RN, and has been one for only three years, is ready to leave if she can figure out what else she wants to do.
I think we SHOULD charge for our services just as the doctor does, or the PT, or whatever. Maybe then we would be taken seriously and not seen as just another warm body to substitute for another, and given eight patients on a stepdown unit, and expected to play concierge from the Hilton to all 78 members of the patients' families, and still be supernurse at the same time.:uhoh21:
My hat is off to nurses :pumpiron:who lead the way in developing staffing ratios, in getting rid of mandatory OT, in making conditions tolerable for themselves and safe for patients, and who strive :smiley_abto develop collegial relationships with physicians and Admin, to replace the outmoded, paternal, often evil relationships we have traditionally had with them, although I personally have had mostly decent relationships with doctors and bosses - as best I recall, anyway.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what nurses and nursing are about.
I know people who have lead the way as you describe and they are my heros. The best I can do is get out of bad situation as quickly as possible. I must say that before I leave a postition and sometimes well before I leave it I outline the source of my unhappyness in detail to people in positions of power. Then I exit, it is the best I can do. I have never had the strength to be a crusader. I have the greatest respect for those that are. The thing that causes conflict in nursing is it's split personality. It is a profession to those that come here to post, the noblest of professions with the highest ideals. To our employers it is a job and we are labor.(except when something goes wrong then we are professionals and it is our fault) The accountants that run hospitals ask themselves every day "who are these waitress/maids and why do we have to pay them so much"? To me that is the crux of the problem right there. PS Even though I am not a crusader I do keep abreast of nursing developements and keep in contact with my representatives about legislation, it is the best I can do.
Unless you are working as an extremely low-paid school nurse or doc's office nurse, why is your pay so low? Are you over-burdened with loans or other debt? Nothing wrong with living with your folks for a while, until you get on your feet. Why are you burned out on Nursing? I hope you find something you like better, in or out of the field. :balloons:
A lot of places, Trudy, at least up here, are hiring people p/t to avoid paying benefits. You cant's support yourself on 16 hours a week.
Specializes in Case Mgmt; Mat/Child, Critical Care.
There are 2 different kinds of nursing perspective, as I see it....the perspective of accepting the poltics of nursing, otherwise known as all the "*bs*", LOL....staying at the bedside for years, enjoying your job, hoping and trying...many different ways, to "make a difference", and you keep at it. Always w/the perspective that nursing is awseome, the best place to be, that we make a difference and that, yes someday things will change....ah, the eternal wellspring of hope...sigh....
And the other perspective of realizing that we, as individuals are more than what our career defines us to be...I am more than being a "nurse", yes it is a huge part of who I am and how I am, but it is not the whole of me. I am first and foremost, a human being....I have wants, needs, rights, feelings, etc, just like every other human being. And w/this perspective comes the realization, at some point,in one's nursing career, that "I just can not do this anymore". The perspective where one will no longer accept the dis-respect,the abuse (from patients, family members, co-workers, doctors,administration, etc),the many, many issues.... the hopelessness, of nursing, if you will, any longer. The point, where a plan is made....you change shifts, departments, areas of nursing, environments, go PT, go prn thinking that will spare you (and often it does for a bit), a lot of the "*bs*" of nursing. This perspective no longer allows for putting up with being treated like a second class citizen, the realization has come that...no, nursing is not going to change, and/or anything I am doing or at least willing to do anymore will affect any positive change...for me, in my nursing life. Then it becomes survival...you see nursing for what it is, you love it and you hate it, you are sad at that realization, yet you know you must make decisions that will make you happy....we let go of the guilt of 'fighting the good fight', 'taking one for the team' mentality...
Some nurses never experience this perspective; some may ,but would never admit it....they cling to their identity as a "nurse" to the end, working 30+ yrs in the profession, finally to retire.
Others realize it and work to make a change, but a change in their own life, be it within nursing, or out of it.
Ultimately we are all individuals, have a right to our experiences and perspectives and have the right to make a change....even if someday that road leads us back to nursing.
I say Godspeed and Blessings to all of us in this career...it is indeed a long and winding road....:)
A lot of places, Trudy, at least up here, are hiring people p/t to avoid paying benefits. You cant's support yourself on 16 hours a week.
However, the poster in question stated they were working overtime. That's a sad state of affairs for an RN to work OT, yet still have to move in with their parents.
? 
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slu_rn
54 Posts
I have been a nurse for almost exactly a year now. I am also looking for a different path. I have reapplied to retail stores for work until I find something that suits me better. I am already burned out of the way that administration, physicians and other nurses treat the staff. My graduation present from a BSN program was that I moved back into my parents house. I don't know of anyone in my graduating class that supports themselves. Everyone either has a roommate or is a married. This is what I have to show for a bachelors degree and working OT?