I am writing this totally heart broken and at my wits end.
I started my career as a nurse receiving compliments on what a good job I did. I felt that I was one of those people that had to do my job well and couldn't settle for any less. I had to chart well and provide the care that patients and families were more than satisfied with. They had to know they could count on me and that I was going to be there for them.
After 15 years and multiple hospital settings I have come to realize that it doesn't matter. Over the years, I have witnessed that many of hte units are run by managers and assistant managers that couldn't handle floor nursing and yet their demands on their employees are unrealistic. The people that they choose to be in charge and manage the floor are picked based on friendship and loyalty rather than hard work.
I have worked side by side with techs who run the unit and force nurses to do their work while they find time to sit on the internet or phone and then get out on time while we are stuck over finishing our work. I have walked into many patients rooms to pass pills only to find they had no water, haven't been turned or need urine emptied from urinals or pans that are overflowing. I can't tell you how many pans I have see stained with urine or feces because they don't get rinsed. How often patients are tied up in lines and cords.
I find myself picking up the slack and doing all of the jobs that countless others do not. Why can't people untangle lines? Why aren't pans rinsed from urine or feces? Why won't the techs do tech jobs and make sure people have water or that other needs are met?
In the end, what you get is punished. Punished because you couldn't get your work done. Punished because you couldn't meet everyone's needs and a patient or family felt you took too long to get to them and there was nothing you could say or do to make it right when you knew in your heart that it wasn't your fault. Instead, the blame is on the fact that there is too much for you to do or there is a major imbalance of productivity amongst workers.
The reason for the nursing shortage? Overworked and not appreciated and abused. You can't stick up for yourself, you can't tell them why you couldn't get things done - you can't say nothing. 15 years and nothing to show for it. I have tried nearly every hospital around and I find the negative complainers and the staff that knows how to socialize are the people that are respected and appreciated. It's not about the people that are out there busting their tails. Everyone knows there is a shortage and why but no one does anything and the biggest culprits are the administrators of the hospitals. The majority of those couldn't handle floor nursing or hardly ever experienced it at all.
I leave behind a lot of families and patients that thought I was a great nurse. But when you can't please one in a hundred or more you are a bad nurse. People don't understand the level of demands on a nurse. It is a downright abusive field with little to no appreciation surrounded by many people who are disappointed with their jobs and their choice in the career.
My final blow: After 3 years of sweating to please my last employer and taking the abuse of never hearing anything good - only bad. I went back to agency and went back to a hospital that I worked at 3 years ago. I knew that this hospital had a bad reputation for poor bedside care. Half the staff of any unit could easily be float and agency. The regular staff on the floor was made up of mostly young girls in tight spandex and inviting clothes working on socializing with doctors and hanging out at the desk all day long. Call lights were on non-stop but these girls would not answer them. The techs were busting their tails here. The agency nurses were working but the in house floats were sitting and socializing too. I ended up with a patient with a very bad attitude that was a complainer and law-suit happy. She was furious that for 4 days not one person followed through with obtaining her records from another hospital. It fell on me. I also had a patient admitted with respiratory distress which she shared a room with and could see I was busy. With her personality, she was angry at the moaning of the elderly lady who couldn't breath and was determined to get me to stop and cater to her to get on those records. When I got my respiratory patient stablized, I did just that. Turns out that the other hospital never received any fax requesting the information. This lady hated every person she had contact with at that hospital and wanted to call an agency to get them shut down. I'm sure you know the type by now. So....guess what. I was told today that I was not welcome back because of her complaint. I would literally pull a chair up and sit next to this lady and let her vent. I gave her my heart and I got booted. The nurse that she had the next day was a guy that sat around socializing and didn't care one bit about her. He was regular staff and he was NOT going to go out of his way. They all get to keep their jobs but the nurse that took the time out to take care of her is out the door.
I need a job or I wouldn't take the abuse. But, I know for a fact that this hospital is never going to get it. They were like that 3 years ago and now they have more floats and more agency staffing them. This is a big and reputable hospital.
The hospital I worked at for 3 years was dumping more and more tasks on the nurses and they were all unhappy and complaining. We lost good hard working techs and they were replaced with people who didn't want to work or nursing students who were tired when they came to work and were kicking their feet up taking it easy. Management loved those people.
I suffer from spinal degeneration and pain and I never get to sit down. My job is harder because they are not pulling their weight.
There is nothing left. I still owe for my loan and I am scared to death to take another nursing job. I know it is not going to be any different. I hurt. I lost my insurance and after all that I worked for I have nothing to show for it but bills and a destroyed ego and heart. I feel as though I am the misfit. I am the one who isn't right. I am wrong. I can't even bring myself to waste time on another application since I don't want anything to do with this career any more. I am going to lose my home, my vehicle and everything else.
I have noticed that the field is being taken over by young graduates who are more worried about looking sexy and socializing than working. Patient satisfaction has gone down the tubes and the senior skilled nurses are getting nowhere in this field. There is nothing anyone can do. We all know it is happening but we can't do anything about it.
I am so sorry you are going through this. I have been subjected to a very similar experience within the past month. I am(was) an RN in a community hospital ED with a total of 17 years as a nurse under my belt. I'd been in the ED over 3 years. I got along great with most of the nurses, and have received accolades from all the ED docs on my work. I had a patient one night that physically attacked me and threatened to rape me. Administration handled the situation terribly, and when they discovered that they might ACTUALLY be at fault for having such poor security in place, they decided to come after me instead. They told me it was my fault and that I didn't know how to properly handle the situation. They told me they were going to suspend and then fire me. I told them to keep their job, I quit. They spent 2 weeks "investigating" the situation; not to improve how nurses and docs and other pts. can be safer, but how they can keep from being sued by staff or other patients. I spent 2 weeks crying and scared. I couldn't believe that my manager and her manager were so out of touch with what the nurses were going through in the ED or what we needed to do our job safely. Most of the other nurses in the unit have been very supportive; a number of nurses and paramedics are either taking other jobs or looking since this incident. Ironically, this particular facility is named "One of the best places to work" in my state. HA!!! I have learned to watch my back much more carefully. I hope that you have better luck in the future. I understand you wanting to get out of nursing all together......I have felt the same way. I'm going to keep on plugging along for now. Good luck to you and you are in my prayers:nuke:
That brought back memories. One of my hospice visits was in a not so great neighborhood. We didn't usually pick them up. Here I go in with a nice new car and I had a very nice shape at the time (better younger days). One of the neighbors came in and was pretty hyper and kept wiping his nose. Started making sexual comments to me. The patient, son and granddaughter were quiet and looked scared of him. I moved the patient and son closer to the door as I was planning an escape - scared to death. He literally tried to touch by butt! I snapped at him. I finally asked if I could talk to the son outside - my escape plan. He was pretty illiterate but asked me what that guy did and was shocked. My husband wanted to go do something about it and I told him it would jeopardize my job. The "sick" manager sent one of the obese nurses back which was totally insulting to ALL OF US! This wasn't about skinny or fat - it was abuse and wrong. I was also told that I didn't handle it properly. I had a hard time thinking that if I told that guy he was being inappropriate that he was going to change his ways. Ya....right....he was just waiting to meet me one day to find out that he was a bad boy and he was going to change all of his ways from that day on. I felt I was going to get raped! I was scared. I have never been threatened like that in any way. I have been lucky as a woman and as a nurse.
I'm so sorry for your bad experiences, I have been there. I worked for 23 years, 18 in the ER and agree with you 100%. My husband doesn't understand why I haven't worked since we moved to a new state 4 years ago. As he puts it---- you work really hard, but at least you make really good money. Only nurses understand and no matter what I say to him he will never understand. I have been thinking of doing medical coding or medical billing. You don't make as much but at least you have peace of mind. i'm sure you made a difference in many patients lives, but I understand that you feel you haven't. I've also been on the other side as a patient with a long hospital stay very sick and I can't even remember anyone washing me or helping me get out of bed after exploratory surgery and a 4 week hospital stay, so I also understand how patients feel. Hang in there and know you are definitely not alone.
Kinda funny...after that experience that brought me here. A friend told me of a friend of hers that had surgery at that hospital and she was left in bloody clothes, linens were not cleaned out of her room for 5 days, the room wasn't cleaned and she had to get herself up to the bathroom after a nephrectomy. She is sending them a very serious letter.
Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
Without the right care she will be so deconditioned it won't be worth trying. I want to get down there so bad.
There are ways to get paid while taking care of family members, I believe if you go through an area agency on aging they will be able to tell you how to get reimbursed. It's pay in lieu of paying someone else to care for her, and it is legal. Maybe if you call your aunt's hospital for the name of the local agency on aging they will be able to tell you.
That way you can get your breath as well as assure your aunt's safety.
Specializes in geriatric, ltc, telemetry, med-surg.
BrokenRNheart,
You know I had this really long reply written to you but I decided that I didn't need to tell you that I know where your coming from with a long note, I just would like you to know that there are many of us out here who know exactly how you feel and I would love for you to PM me anytime so we could talk. I have some really good ideas for you, How many years did you say you have in? Also wandered if you had ever thought about doing something like Assistant Director of Nursing in an Assisted Living/Rehab or even a convelescent home, or even Director of Nursing. You are an RN so you are qualified, and I don't know where you live but I know here in Ky. it is alot more than you could make working the floor, you still get to interact with the patients but you wouldn't be putting a strain on your body and of course the best part is that you get to have a voice in not only what type of care the patients recieve but what type of attitude and work ethic your staff has. I know you mind is probably in a fog right now but it is something I think you should consider. Look I swore I wouldn't be caught dead working in a nursing home and I loved it. I love listening to the stories the elderly have to tell and the thanks they give you for being there.
You know I had this really long reply written to you but I decided that I didn't need to tell you that I know where your coming from with a long note, I just would like you to know that there are many of us out here who know exactly how you feel and I would love for you to PM me anytime so we could talk. I have some really good ideas for you, How many years did you say you have in? Also wandered if you had ever thought about doing something like Assistant Director of Nursing in an Assisted Living/Rehab or even a convelescent home, or even Director of Nursing. You are an RN so you are qualified, and I don't know where you live but I know here in Ky. it is alot more than you could make working the floor, you still get to interact with the patients but you wouldn't be putting a strain on your body and of course the best part is that you get to have a voice in not only what type of care the patients recieve but what type of attitude and work ethic your staff has. I know you mind is probably in a fog right now but it is something I think you should consider. Look I swore I wouldn't be caught dead working in a nursing home and I loved it. I love listening to the stories the elderly have to tell and the thanks they give you for being there.
Good Luck and feel free to PM me,
I am thinking about it. I am not doing much right now. I am dreading even trying because I just can't take another disappointment.
I'm learning so much from this thread. Since many of the regular staff aren't good enough, fast enough, perfect enough, etc, etc, then how do agency staff manage in hospitals with even less orientation, working with new computer systems, and staying there only a few weeks? And how do new grads manage with dealing with poorly designed computer systems at the same time as they are learning how to do patient care? I'm already thinking I made a mistake in getting my new job, as their demands/obtascles are even worse than the impossible ones I've had before. Is the situation better in other countries? Is there basically no place in bedside nursing anymore for RNs that actually want to take care of patients vs document that they did it when they didn't? I went into nursing thinking I'd be a travel nurse someday, but now I'm afraid to try that as I would have even less of a clue of what I signed up for than I do now.
Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
I'm learning so much from this thread. Since many of the regular staff aren't good enough, fast enough, perfect enough, etc, etc, then how do agency staff manage in hospitals with even less orientation, working with new computer systems, and staying there only a few weeks? And how do new grads manage with dealing with poorly designed computer systems at the same time as they are learning how to do patient care? I'm already thinking I made a mistake in getting my new job, as their demands/obtascles are even worse than the impossible ones I've had before. Is the situation better in other countries? Is there basically no place in bedside nursing anymore for RNs that actually want to take care of patients vs document that they did it when they didn't? I went into nursing thinking I'd be a travel nurse someday, but now I'm afraid to try that as I would have even less of a clue of what I signed up for than I do now.
I have cringed sometimes at the sadness I hear from nurses who haven't even BEGUN - and despair having read some of the entries on this thread.
I would like to offer an alternative - at the risk of being positive (ha ha) - There ARE plusses and possiblities to being a nurse. It is also going to take work on our parts to establish some reasonable boundaries, personal ones in defense of our own well being - as well as professional, working together to make conditions more "do-able".
I originally wrote this in response to the "what do you guys think of working with CNA's?" post but it was a bit off topic so I just pasted it into my journal. I'll repost it here because I sometimes feel the same way as you do. And I've only been an RN for a little under a year!! Crap!
imho, It depends on the unit, really. Several of the CNA's on my floor can be hard to work with. I figured everyone was just overworked, but after working on other floors with CNAs having similar patient loads, I realized the problem is really just (some of) the employees on my unit. There are a couple CNAs that I don't really care whether I work with them or not... Once in a while I end up getting a team to myself with no CNA assigned, and to be quite honest I like it that way. For as much work as I end up doing anyways most of the time it is easier just to do it myself than to be constantly after CNAs that roll their eyes when I ask for help and spend as much time as they can talking on the phone/eating/doing homework than helping with the team or doing their charting properly (then using ignorance as an excuse - even though they've worked there for 4-5 years). My floor is very busy, and I can understand that some of them work two jobs to make ends meet (they complain about being tired). Hey bills suck...but they're there to do a job and several of them give a halfhearted effort to it. They complain about how much work they have to do and how much less they make than an RN. Cry me a river. I've found that nursing students that come over to being a CNA from being externs can be the worst offenders.
It's just funny that I have no problem running a team without a CNA, and then they act like they are SOOOOOOOO overworked and life is horrible (and only 1 of them out of 10 even bother to ever pass water on their shift). Ask them to turn a patient q 2h or even when they go to get vitals and it never gets done. I end up doing it. Yet they have time to spend 30 minutes figuring out what they want to order from take-out. I worked for several years as a CNA, I know exactly what it's like. I don't wear it on my shirt, but DAMN get some work ethic, people!!
My favorite CNAs are the ones that actually take care of business, alert me to funky vital signs without me having to hunt them down, and spend more time worrying about patient care then the "AWESOME RN JOB IN THE ICU LINED UP AFTER GRADUATION IN 6 MONTHS" or constantly blabbing about all the problems in school all the while semi-ignoring call lights.
I just have a hard time believing that an aide doesn't have time to do a morning bed bath when they spend the last 30 minutes of their shift sitting behind the nurse station staring at the wall.
The best part about that is if the CNAs don't get their work done, we get blamed, but if we write an improvement report about them for not doing their job - simple stuff like emptying foleys/hemovacs/etc, the manager sits on it doesn't do anything at all about it. Not that I jump straight to write ups, but aides not doing their jobs has been an ongoing problem on our unit for about the past 6 months.
As a matter of fact me and 3 of my classmates I graduated school with all took jobs on this same unit. Since January all of the other 3 have left, they all had the same reason, the don't ever feel like they get any help at all. Since we're understaffed it's hard for even the RNs to be mutually supporting. Sometimes it's hard to even find another RN to come and do a narcotic waste; which is retarded because its an orthopedic med-surg floor and narcotics are about 80% of the drugs we give. We recently had an RN from another med-surg unit get pulled to our floor and she was talking about how difficult it was. I'm beginning to consider transferring units in the near future.
Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
...get some work ethic, people!!
Well, trust me, it's not every CNA (some are just SO AWESOME!!), and it's not just in nursing/medical fields. You find it everywhere.
Like you, I especially love it when people play dumb like that - and - think that WE are stupid enough to believe it!! I have one that I work w/ that is just UN-BELIEVE-able in that regard!
BrokenRNheart
367 Posts
That brought back memories. One of my hospice visits was in a not so great neighborhood. We didn't usually pick them up. Here I go in with a nice new car and I had a very nice shape at the time (better younger days). One of the neighbors came in and was pretty hyper and kept wiping his nose. Started making sexual comments to me. The patient, son and granddaughter were quiet and looked scared of him. I moved the patient and son closer to the door as I was planning an escape - scared to death. He literally tried to touch by butt! I snapped at him. I finally asked if I could talk to the son outside - my escape plan. He was pretty illiterate but asked me what that guy did and was shocked. My husband wanted to go do something about it and I told him it would jeopardize my job. The "sick" manager sent one of the obese nurses back which was totally insulting to ALL OF US! This wasn't about skinny or fat - it was abuse and wrong. I was also told that I didn't handle it properly. I had a hard time thinking that if I told that guy he was being inappropriate that he was going to change his ways. Ya....right....he was just waiting to meet me one day to find out that he was a bad boy and he was going to change all of his ways from that day on. I felt I was going to get raped! I was scared. I have never been threatened like that in any way. I have been lucky as a woman and as a nurse.