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.
Specializes in UR/PA, Hematology/Oncology, Med Surg, Psych.
In the past, I worked in a horrendous place, and yes I still can feel that awful pit in my stomach when I think about it. I am guessing that many nurses have those memories (or maybe living them now); not wanting to go to work to the point of feeling physically ill just thinking about it, the feeling of being so trapped, and the fear.
Perhaps it is PTSD. I do know that there is one area of nursing I will never work in again, no matter what. And for me, it is the stuff that nightmares are made of.
"there is absolutely no agenda in addressing these horrific conditions.
plenty of publicity about the shortage, but no one seems to care why such a shortage exists."
So true. Nothing is ever going to be done. It is getting worse and worse. You know it's bad when brand new nurses look the way they do IN orientation - SCARED.
I'm so lost. I thought I had job security but I am realizing I never should have joined this nightmare. They should give people tests to subject them to what their lives will be like before they ever get them sunk into debt for this career. Hustling new grads through is not the answer. They are trying to rush people into the field instead of address the problem.
What if! What if we all got together and demanded that the government do something? Why isn't anything being done? Because none of us know what to do? All these nurses that know the truth and we can't do anything.
BUT there IS something we can do! First is empower ourselves. HOW? With unionization.Then make sure we choose a union that will be politically active and HELP us enact the change we need , Nurse/pt. ratios,mandated by state or federal laws. Laws that will protect the health care whistle blower from retaliatory discharge. We have been victims of this sometimes cruel profession,and those that stoop to do its bidding, but that CAN change.
Never harm a fellow nurse, we are in this together, stop the horizontal violence and eating of our young, we are not each other's enemies, we need to recognize the TRUE enemy, corporate GREED. It is that greed that has made us do the work that two nurses used to do years ago, money , profit their bottom line. NEVER LOSE HOPE, we need to channel our despair, frustration and anger into action.
Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
BUT there IS something we can do! First is empower ourselves. HOW? With unionization.Then make sure we choose a union that will be politically active and HELP us enact the change we need , Nurse/pt. ratios, laws that will protect us from unscrupulous employers should we choose to blow the whistle. We have been victims of this sometimes cruel profession,and those that stoop to do its bidding, but that CAN change.Never harm a fellow nurse, we are in this together, stop the horizontal violence and eating of or young, we are not each other enemies, we need to recognize the true enemy, corporate greed. It is that greed that has made us do the work that two nurses used to do years ago, money , profit their bottom line. Never lose HOPE, we need to channel our despair, frustration and anger into action.
Yes, and I'm gonna follow up on what I heard about my state nurses association partnering w/ California's. I may not make it back but I sure have the strength, ability, knowledge, and DESIRE to see things change - probably not for me but for us - we always are thinking of the PATIENTS and what conditions do to THEM - but we should be just as focused on what it does to US - and it's just gonna get worse if we don't stop the need for nurses to leave.
Yes, and I'm gonna follow up on what I heard about my state nurses association partnering w/ California's. I may not make it back but I sure have the strength, ability, knowledge, and DESIRE to see things change - probably not for me but for us - we always are thinking of the PATIENTS and what conditions do to THEM - but we should be just as focused on what it does to US - and it's just gonna get worse if we don't stop the need for nurses to leave.
Zoe, I too will never work as a nurse again, but that will not stop me from doing what I can to help those who come after me. We nurses who no longer are in the field can do alot of good for our fellow nurses still in the trenches, even if its only to give them moral and spiritual support to go on and face another day. I am in my THIRD year in my lawsuit against my former employer, my lawyers have not given up and I wont either, unless I get to the supreme court and they deny me. I have been in despair like the OP too, and have been given the opportunity to try to make a difference with this lawsuit.It's been EMPOWERING to me personally and helped me get over feeling like a victim of this sometimes cruel profession.
As we all have, I've had a number of rotten nursing jobs, but one sticks out among all the others.
I had one horrible, horrible job a number of years ago. I hated it so much, I would dry heave in the car while driving to work. Working at that hospital made me actually hate being alive. As another poster said, I had the fantasy of turning my car and driving off of a bridge so I would not have to go to work.
I can't believe I actually felt this way, and I'm ashamed to admit it, but I would look at my pts lying in bed and be envious of them. I was so very miserable, I would have traded places with a pt not to have to work at that job.
I know this sounds extreme, and over-the-top, but it's the truth. The misery of that job affected me that much.
I was abused, mistreated, belittled, discounted, and invalidated from every direction in that job.
I had always been a person who handles stress well, but I had a panic attack for the first time in my life at that job. It's been seven years since I left, but I can still hardly bear to think about it.
I gave that job everything I had. Places like that, the more you give, the more they take- and they will take and take until there is nothing left of you.
I still have my moments, but things are far, far better for me now.
No one except another nurse who has also been there can possibly understand what we go through.
I am astonished at the amount of human anguish I'm hearing through the posts in this thread.
I am equally astonished at the strength of my own reaction to them, how keenly I apparently still feel the pain of the circumstances that forced me from my last hospital job. I'd thought I was well over it, yet I'm still angry inside at having nearly lost my sanity and my health over a job I put my heart and soul into for three years, and yet I was never smart enough, fast enough, thorough enough, willing enough to take on more and more and more...........and I finally broke.
BrokenRNheart, you have touched a deep nerve here. You have also opened a dialogue that speaks to the heart of the nursing shortage, and perhaps this can be where the healing begins---for you, for me, for every nurse who has ever been mistreated and made to feel inadequate despite her best efforts.
Thank you for starting this thread. You are a brave woman who deserves much better than what you've been dealt. :icon_hug:
Excellent post, marla. I too, felt the palpable anguish in BrokenRNheart's first post, and although it was not about nursing, but about my first marriage many years ago, that post could easily have been written by me. Looking back, I believe that I might've had PTSD, but at the time, only Vietnam vets were accorded the dignity of a diagnosis.
BrokenRNhearted, and those of us who are still having nightmares about horrible work situations, please please please get into counseling. Just the very act of getting into counseling affirms that you reject the negative image of yourself that has been projected onto you and finally validates your feelings.
In time, you can actually begin to heal. Trust me. :redbeathe
Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
Zoe, I too will never work as a nurse again, but that will not stop me from doing what I can to help those who come after me. We nurses who no longer are in the field can do alot of good for our fellow nurses still in the trenches, even if its only to give them moral and spiritual support to go on and face another day. I am in my THIRD year in my lawsuit against my former employer, my lawyers have not given up and I wont either, unless I get to the supreme court and they deny me. I have been in despair like the OP too, and have been given the opportunity to try to make a difference with this lawsuit.It's been EMPOWERING to me personally and helped me get over feeling like a victim of this sometimes cruel profession.
:) cool -- see? This thread, the supposed negativity, and the strength of those who have posted, including you, have inspired me. Not a bad thing.
I know this sounds extreme, and over-the-top, but it's the truth. The misery of that job affected me that much.
Nope, it sounds pretty familiar. Thanks Valerie
I love your name BTW!
Just the very act of getting into counseling affirms that you reject the negative image of yourself that has been projected onto you and finally validates your feelings.
Throughout all the years that I have been a nurse, I have met many stressed or even unhappy RN's. Most of them don't dare make a stand about unsafe assignments for fear of losing their job. The people that have said anything have been fired or had to leave because management made their lives miserable. To me, it seems as if there are a lot of nurses out there that might be actual victims of whistleblower.
One of the reasons I have not participated in a forum like this is because of an experience years ago when I found a forum about nurse burnout and all the war it created as I mentioned earlier. I also remember some nurse managers that came into the topic preaching the same thing you would have gotten from them if you were a staff nurse on their floor. This is where our roadblocks begin. The denial and ignorance comes from the management. Most of the managers I have ever met barely did any floor nursing and if they did they couldn't handle it. They aren't even allowed to speak up for their nurses if they wanted to because their job is all about budget and control. Control your staff and stay within budget. If they were on our side, they would not be managers because speaking for us would cost them their jobs. I could never be a manager. I would make sure the nurses could get their work done and get breaks so I would lose my job as a manager. I actually worked side by side with someone just like that. She had a management job and lost it because she looked out for her staff. She is a great nurse and person and about to retire.
I have always wondered about class action lawsuits and many other things that would help us. I realize that we have nothing. The main reason we have nothing is because nurses will not come together. Each and every one of us stands alone except for the very few that stand their ground and go for a lawsuit as one has mentioned here. That's my hero! You go GIRL!
We are surrounded by nurses that have accepted that this is nursing and nurses who are afraid to do anything other than complain. They complain to other co-workers but deny every bit of it if confronted by management. That keeps us living under excessive stress and fear. My biggest fear ever day is jeopardizing my license because of my assignments. I fear losing my job every day that I go to it. I fear losing my control and telling someone off which I have managed to do about once every 3 years. Each time it is about how unsafe it is on the floor and not being able to get things done. Ever hospital that I have left behind me has been just that. As soon as it is heard that I made a comment about unsafe, the complaints and discipline started rolling in. I spent 10 years at a LARGE hospital in my area where people knew me on every unit because I floated. They were excited to see me when I worked their floor because I worked and I wasn't scattered. After they started the revolving door affect, the moral went down hill year after year and I watched it. I watched the senior nurses that I learned from and looked up to jump ship and leave. They were driven out or left. That hospital is full of agency and brand new grads. If you go to work there, you will be trained by a nurse that hasn't even been out of school 1 year. The revolving door has been going on since 1996. Agency nurses come and go - aren't good enough or whatever. They campaign and beg for nurses in the media. They target new grads. It has a social ego attached to it to work there. I have met new grads that tried working there and were turned off by their orientation and the lack of training they received or the lack of experience from their preceptor. These nurses wanted to be the best they could be in their field and weren't going to accept a puff of smoke blown over the reality.
One of the nurses that was chased off had worked their 15 years and never worked anywhere else. They started harassing her over her charting. She spent more time at the bedside giving TLC to her patients and did many of her baths herself. She was a loving kind woman. I worked side by side with a couple of airheads that would repeatedly forget to chart oxycontin and other important meds. The loving nurse ended up with her license being threatened for not charting protonix and the other two nurses are charge nurses.
I know of an educator that bolused a patient with dopamine and another that did not know the difference between oxycontin and oxycodone and thought the difference was chloride and sodium. Needless to say, oxycontin was being crushed and put in feeding tubes. I was in charge when a newer nurse blew a triple lumen apart trying to flush it after blood ran out and it clotted. She was forcing the flush. She still works there and was on her way to a master's degree. The management surrounded herself with loyal followers, not skilled nurses. Her budget was the best in the hospital and she was promoted after leaving two units in a wreck other than financially. These were not just my sightings or opinion. This was what many people felt but kept quiet about.
When I left my last job, I was called by a wonderful co-worker who said she wished she had my guts to speak up but she just didn't. All the people that came to me for support are gone. Not one supporter. They are all fed up and unhappy but as nurses we live in our own little worlds worrying only about our own survival in the field. We are legally obligated to show up to work and take the assignments. We cannot refuse or walk off of our jobs. Because of this, it is getting more and more unsafe. Because of this we have three types of nurses: those that keep their chins to their chest and obey, those that job hop because of it and those that quit nursing all together and have nothing to show for their investments and beliefs. Their belief is that the field was abusive and unsafe. I always wonder what it would be like to gather all of those nurses and the nurses that are active and want to make a stand and go for a class action lawsuit. What are our roadblocks? We all know the truth. Even when a state works on laws about acuity, the numbers they come up with still aren't safe. At bare minimum they may protect you from having 9 or more patients. But I have seen those numbers and know that those assignments are still not safe. Four patients on a PCU floor is busy. Five on a med-surg is busy. I don't care about Corporate America. When you are talking about the patient safety and retaining your license and being able to provide the care that patients deserve, Corporate America should not be the name of the game.
This topic has over 2800 views with only 78 replies and mostly from the same people. There are other topics with the same content. I have fought with this feeling for years. I have felt totally limited as far as being able to do anything about it. I don't matter. I am not a public nurse figure and will never become one. Yet, I am furious with the public figures that are not fighting for us. They are more concerned about promoting themselves with other articles instead of using their image to make a change in regards to the biggest problem in nursing....the reason for the shortage. There would be MORE nurses if the nurses could do their jobs safely. Period. It would still leave out those people that do not want to do this type of work. But there are nurses who are not practicing nursing because of the fear of not being able to do the job....not the fear of cleaning a bowel movement or suction sputum. Those are the nurses that I want to work with. The nurses that made a stand about the care but the only impact it had was on their own personal lives.
I remember meeting a new grad that filed a lawsuit within her first year of nursing for conflict of interest. I wish I would have kept track of her. I wonder what happened with her case. She meant business. I wish I would have taken her side but I had no way of contacting her.
We all know what will happen with those cases when people do it on their own. Co-workers will be interviewed and dirt will be dug up on that person and they will probably lose. But what they are suing for is the truth. That would be the person who is trying to make a change.
I am more than ready to unite with people who want to make a stand. Not one of us can do it alone. It's a matter of making things public. I haven't the slightest clue what it will take. A petition? Contacting our reps? What about ANA? Why aren't they doing anything? Go to their site and read about shortages but never read about why and what is being done about it. They are blaming it on lack of instructors. This seems pretty lame to me. With all these nurses out there, all the inactive ones, there is a lack of instructors? I can't believe for one minute that getting the needed instructors is going to change the overall problem here.
If anyone is interested or has ideas, feel free to PM me. Maybe we should keep in touch. We might wish we did one day. It's only getting worse.
I, for one, think that exit interviews should be public. The employer has the right to tarnish our records when we leave but there is nothing we can do to tell future prospects about our own experience. It is downright unfair. We are evaluated all the time but the hospital and management are not and that information is not available. When I go to a job interview, the only thing that matters is my profile. It doesn't matter that I was on a poorly managed floor. It doesn't matter that I am a good nurse. It matters how the manager feels about me when I leave. But, maybe the manager isn't a better person than I am.
Still frustrated. Still feel hopeless.
Say your prayers for me. The coordinator is trying to get me back into the hospital with the ticked off patient (x 4 days before me). It was the manager of the poorly run unit that blackballed me and the problem was because of the inability to satisfy the patient because of acuity. I was trying to please more people than I could manage. I did the best I could as other staff was hanging around the nurses station.
First step, contact a union and be careful which one you choose. I think the CNA has been unionizing in all 50 states, I may be wrong. If I were an RN that is the FIRST step at self empowerment an RN can do, Sadly we LPNs still have less of a voice than the RNs, so I have been screaming for help for the sake of my fellow LPNs. Maybe the CNA can find a way to represent RNs and the support staff against the all powerful employer, are we not in this together?
Second thing to empower yourself, get to know your own state laws regarding whistleblower retaliation.
The employer will try to use your license to intimidate you, unless you have really done someting that the BON would pull your license for , realize it is only a ploy. All the more reason to have the protection a good union would offer.
OMG! When I used the term "horrendous" to my last employer, she said she had a problem with my communication!
I love your statement! Funny thing is that when I ask people what they think if I use that description, they are RIGHT ON! They know exactly what I am talking about.
I had a pt. with resp. distress that should have been in ICU and an independent lady in her 90's to be discharged. She insisted on waiting at the front door for her ride. When her ride was late, my charge nurse had the gall to say that in hindsight, I shouldn't have sent her to the door! No matter what....you are wrong - you must be able to foresee the future and make nothing but the right decision. The doctor even gave this lady her prescriptions. She lived independently and I shouldn't have honored her request to be at the door waiting for her ride. She did not want her ride to have to come to the floor. The ride was 40 minutes late. I was wrong but I was trying to stabilize this other patient. A student had taken the discharge to the door and waited there for her ride (bless that student's heart!).
How many of you CRINGE when something doesn't go right on your job? They make us feel so guilty but who's fault is it really? How many of you are interrupted while trying to pass your meds? Remember what they said about safety passing meds? How many of you had a med error because of too many interruptions?
You will love this one....on my last unit, the clerks didn't answer phones....the nurses did. The clerks had too much to do. They did....but we didn't? I spent nearly half my day dealing with phones ringing and half of those were personal calls.
They have nothing on me that could jeopardize my license and they know I am a good nurse. They have NEVER intimidated me with that. I am the nurse that grads come to for support and information. I am the nurse that staff comes to when they are behind or afraid. New grads know that I will teach them something and not make them feel inferior. I will make them feel confident. When new techs had to be checked off, other techs would bring them to me because I would help them with their confidence and teach them tricks.
I don't drink or do drugs. I have never lost a patient on my shift - unless they were palliative care.
I am not an R.N. or LPN; but I do beg the R.N.'s and LPN's out there to try to get together to fight "City Hall" - namely, our completely money-driven health care system. Sometimes you CAN fight City Hall.
Health care should NOT be delivered along the lines of corporate strategy.
And, yes - as I'm sure others will point out - money is important. No one denies that reality. I am sure, however, that money can be gotten for providing quality inpatient care, if politicians weren't so cowardly in addressing the health care issue and so insistent on misdirecting funds towards inauspicious programs.
The government will likely be forced to address the issue of quality of inpatient care as the baby boomers start filling the wards. They're aging.
It seems as though a strong national nursing lobby is needed.
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dream'n, BSN, RN
1,162 Posts
In the past, I worked in a horrendous place, and yes I still can feel that awful pit in my stomach when I think about it. I am guessing that many nurses have those memories (or maybe living them now); not wanting to go to work to the point of feeling physically ill just thinking about it, the feeling of being so trapped, and the fear.
Perhaps it is PTSD. I do know that there is one area of nursing I will never work in again, no matter what. And for me, it is the stuff that nightmares are made of.