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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 totally defeated and hopeless.
Then dont worry about your license. Dont borrow trouble.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.
We can only do our best every day we walk through the door. We cant let fear rule the day.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.
The hospitals have the money. Look at the money spent in overtime and agency as well as building enhancements and new equipment.I'm tired of hearing it's not from that budget. Well, then how do you get the nursing budget to be as prosperous as those other budgets? There is an answer but they don't care.
They don't care about hiring agency because it costs less than a full time with benefits. But, if they changed the work environment, the agency nurses could become full time candidates and the need won't be there.
That's why they want to keep me suppressed. I'm not buying it!
True - and hospitals seem to spend so much money on "polishing the turd" - i.e., making things look pretty despite understaffing, hiring consultant groups to advise on how to increase "customer satisfaction", posting silly slogans around the building, etc...
Here is MNA's move to address the shortage:
Michigan Nurses Rally on Capitol Steps
The initiative is expected to train 500 additional nursing instructors and graduate more than 3,000 additional nurses over the next 3 years.
Not one mention about conditions. 500 additional instructors and 3,000 more nurses should take care of it.
As we all know....never any mention as to why there is a shortage. It's all about numbers.
BrokenRNHeart,I do believe many nurses experience PTSD.
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.
Please feel free to PM me or send me an email.
:icon_hug:
Excellent post, Valerie.
You know, I've always considered myself a pretty tough cookie, able to take whatever life dished out and keep on truckin'. But this thread has brought back some gut-wrenching memories that make me ever so grateful that I turned tail and RAN from that med/surg job..........I honestly think I would be dead, or worse, if I'd stayed any longer. I'd spent the entire last year there fighting illness after illness, several times even becoming a patient in my own hospital thanks to severe infections. My blood pressure was running about 200/100 no matter how many pills I took for it, and at times it would zoom as high as 260/120, causing terrible headaches and dizziness. There were a few times I thought I'd stroke out right there on the job, the pressure was so intense, but I never did......yes, I'm a tough one all right.
All told, I was off work almost two months out of that last year---I even had to apply for FMLA, because I used up all of my earned leave and then some.
At the time, I didn't recognize it as due to job stress. My immune system usually was strong enough to fight off the squirrels in the back yard; I rarely, if ever, came down with anything that couldn't be managed with herb tea and a couple of Tylenol. So I couldn't figure out why I kept getting sick, or why I was coming down with so many funky infections---myocarditis? Cellulitis? Pyelo? Even my gallbladder died that year, and when I had my lap chole my surgeon told me that it was so full of infection that I'd missed peritonitis by a squeak.
All I knew was that I felt like garbage, and my attendance record was so poor that I was in constant trouble at work. It wasn't until the day I walked onto the floor, only to be confronted by the manager for yet another minor breach of some policy, that I suddenly understood why I'd been so sick..........and in the space of a heartbeat I knew that I could not work there one. more. day. In fact, I had a miniature nervous breakdown right in the manager's office, turned in my notice, said I was taking the last two weeks of my FMLA leave, and went straight into therapy.
I stayed home and collected unemployment benefits for the next two months while I sorted things out. As things turned out, that time off was the best investment I could have made, both for my mental and physical health. I was still looking for my nursing niche when I found a position as DON of an assisted living facility, and I've always felt God smiled on me the day I walked into that building, for I immediately felt at home and have been blessed to know these wonderful residents now for over two years. I don't make anywhere near the same kind of money I did at the hospital, but I'm certainly not starving to death, and at this point in my life it's not really about the money anyway.
Yet I know that if I ever stop loving it, if I ever begin to feel used and taken advantage of by the powers that be, I'll leave and start over again elsewhere. NO job is worth the kind of pain I went through at that hospital, and if conditions continue to worsen throughout the industry, I'll leave nursing entirely. I never thought I'd say that, but I'm not going to go into my 50s feeling decades older, and I REFUSE to sacrifice my emotional and physical well-being on the altar of health care. People in my family die in their 50s and 60s..........I have to be kinder to my body so that I can watch my grandchildren grow up, or at the very least enjoy whatever time is left to me.
Life, I've decided, is too short for bad jobs. And IMHO, this attitude is exactly what every nurse needs to adopt in order to survive, and thrive, in this profession. No nursing union can do it for us. No amount of picketing, shouting slogans, or striking will do for us what we need to do for ourselves (besides, professional people shouldn't have to resort to blue-collar tactics to establish their rights as workers). It is up to each individual nurse to decide "I will NOT work under these conditions" and stick to it. If enough of us vote with our feet, TPTB CAN'T continue to make life miserable for us........something will have to change, or they won't be able to staff their facilities.
Sorry for running on so long..........but I feel very passionately that nurses must assert themselves and stop taking the abuse. It will only get worse if we don't.:stone
Don't forget the new campaign of SCRIPTING!
Instead of addressing why we can't take care of our patients, we now have to use scripts to tell them we CAN.
I like my script....I don't know when I will see you again, anything can happen once I walk out the door, but you feel free to call me if you need me or if you haven't seen me in awhile. If I leave to get you a drink of water and I'm not back in 5 minutes, feel free to call me again....chances are I was interrupted 50 times on the way to the water machine. Your call light will interrupt me from whatever I am doing at the time and you will become my priority for just a moment. Excuse me, I have to answer the phone.
See now you are beginning to have a VOICE, right now we are listening, maybe tommorow the employer will have to listen.We cant make change without legal protections, because as we all know our employer is not our buddy.I think that nurses ought to learn to trust an organization that we PAY to look out for our best interests, right now that is a union. The ANA is great and they have done good, but the employer does not have to abide by what they say, they have no contract with them, nor does the ANA have the NLRB behind it. If the union does not do the bidding of those who pay dues, they should be decertified and a better union take its place.
Here is MNA's move to address the shortage:Michigan Nurses Rally on Capitol Steps
The initiative is expected to train 500 additional nursing instructors and graduate more than 3,000 additional nurses over the next 3 years.
Not one mention about conditions. 500 additional instructors and 3,000 more nurses should take care of it.
As we all know....never any mention as to why there is a shortage. It's all about numbers.
I've noticed the same thing in many articles/news shows about the nursing shortage: an almost determined failure to mention the REAL reason behind the shortage - i.e., few want to persist in the field for long (esp bedside), due to increasingly worse conditions.
It seems like a determined omission - it's easier to deal with numbers, such as number of instructors, than actual working conditions.
I guess "conditions" is the elephant in the living room...
"It is up to each individual nurse to decide "I will NOT work under these conditions" and stick to it. If enough of us vote with our feet, TPTB CAN'T continue to make life miserable for us........something will have to change, or they won't be able to staff their facilities."
This is all we have for now. But because the number of nurses that can actually do this is small, it's not about to happen.
I started my campaign. I wrote the editors of the last article I just posted. Start writing those editors. Ask them why they don't write about the real reason for the shortage.
"It is up to each individual nurse to decide "I will NOT work under these conditions" and stick to it. If enough of us vote with our feet, TPTB CAN'T continue to make life miserable for us........something will have to change, or they won't be able to staff their facilities."This is all we have for now. But because the number of nurses that can actually do this is small, it's not about to happen.
this is my frustration, too.
that such a small # of nurses are refusing to work in such unthinkable conditions.
and sooooooo many complain, but do nothing.
sure, most of us need jobs.
but at the cost of our health and self-respect?
i've learned there are some things you just cannot put a price on.
leslie
BrokenRNheart
367 Posts
The hospitals have the money. Look at the money spent in overtime and agency as well as building enhancements and new equipment.
I'm tired of hearing it's not from that budget. Well, then how do you get the nursing budget to be as prosperous as those other budgets? There is an answer but they don't care.
They don't care about hiring agency because it costs less than a full time with benefits. But, if they changed the work environment, the agency nurses could become full time candidates and the need won't be there.
That's why they want to keep me suppressed. I'm not buying it!