Almost finished and want to quit

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I am almost done with my ADN program and thought I really wanted to do this but have become so disillusioned I am on the verge of quiting with only 3 months to go. I literally have trouble openning a book to study as I feel like I have made a huge mistake. Please take no offense when I say this and do not think I feel I am too good as I have done all kinds of jobs but nursing in most place I have seen so far is abusive. I did not know there was a setting that allowed this kind of treatment by "customers". I dont think walmart would allow their customers to be treated like this. I am starting to feel like I studied hard to work in a sweatshop environment. And the interesting part is that, although I keep my feeling to myself everyone else things it is ok to have 100 patients with 1000 procedures theya re going out for. The students themselves talk about time management as in she just doesnt have good time management skills? What? I was a waitress in many very busy restaurants and when I was younger earned a lot of money in these places with little time to take breaks but it was nothing like this. It seems to me that nursing attracts a certain kind of person to be able to tolerate it and perhaps I am not that kind of person. I love the theory of it and think it could be a great job if nurses were treated as professionals but sadly they are not. Doesnt anyone ever wonder why they are not consulted more when the hospital builds a new wing , buys new software since they are primarily the ones using it. In other workplaces this is typically not the case. I think of my friend that works at the bacon plant with full benes and 15$ hour and no liability. She would never work in the hospital I dont think.

THe saddest part is that I dont think it can be changed. I have never seen a group of people more ready to take the blame for things they didnt do and cant control continue to think its ok to be treated like a unwanted pack mule.

I am sorry if this is a little over the top. I am mad that I have student loans to pay back on this "career"

Specializes in psyche, dialysis, community health.
Force yourself to complete your program and obtain your license, then take a break before you make any decisions afterward. You need time to recuperate from this. You may never work in nursing, but it is to your advantage to obtain and maintain the license, as you never know what life will send your way.

Couldn't have said it better myself callieotter3!

You don't have to work in a hospital. With your RN, you can pursue jobs that need an RN's opinion and expertise - law firms, businesses that sells medical equiptment, pharmacy sales rep, desigining community health projects, case managers, teaching CE classes, etc. Whatever you decide to do, now's not he time to decide whether you wanna quit. Graduate, pass your boards, then take a few weeks to let your mind chill out.

Hold on. Answers will come.

dig

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Specializes in Telemetry.

You know what. I've never really had a problem with my patients, even the demanding, rude, and hateful ones. I kind of really think of patients as customers, and as long as the patient doesn't get physically agressive or call me names I'm alright with letting the complaine as much as they want. I wouldn't want to be in the hospital either, plus they are sick and most of the time we are torturing the patients with tests and not letting them sleep for more than 3 or 4 hours at a time. Franklly I'd be at the end of my rope if I was put through that too. I think what makes me dislike nursing so much as that nursing is not even about the patient....neither is doctoring. The lack of communication and the amount of issues that fall through the cracks is what I find so appaling. I hate the fact that nurses judge their fat diabetic patient because he is eating or that a nurse blows off someones lung cancer because the person smoked. I hate it when a doctor orders a crap ton of tests after admiting that he doesn't need all of them or the doctor who recognizes that his patient is in a complete heart block and does nothing about it. I hate all the paper work, upon more repetitive paper work to cover our butts. All we do as nurses is paper work. I want to spend time with my patients and quite frankly if I got paid less and had less of a work load so I could do that; I would not be bothered by the loss of income. I hate nursing because the system is broken, people (my family) are dying because of it and it ****** me off!

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I have one more semister after this one, and I know how you feel. The awesome responsibility and the relatively small paycheck is enough to make anyone question why they ever thought they should become a nurse. I think most nurses are the type of person that really cares about other people. That being the case, they put up with all the challenges because the feeling they get when they have made a positive difference in another person's life makes everything worth it.

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Love the story pcn. That is awesome and those are the stories that probably made me think I wanted to b a nurse. Its the stuff Kalipso Red is talking about that upsets me. Although, I actually have big problems with the customer service approach to medicine. I think it is a breeding ground for costly, unnecessary procedures. But it is how the system is set up. Procedures pay. I guess that is why med surg floors don't make any money.

I am very aware that things need to be cost effective and have absolutely not problem at all with that. I have a big problem with "selling" clients services that they don't understand. I dont feel medical care should be for profit.

That said I have no problem with pharmaceutical companies or medical supplies companies being for profit. There is no reason to thrown gobs of money out there is there isnt going to be a possible big return. They do research which is always a gamble. However, their profit margins are too high. I am pretty sure this issue is going to get addressed one way or another so that doesnt bother me too much. This has already started. Moreover the customer for these products are doc who are ordering things they understand. NOT the poor patient. Can you imagine a patient ordering their own heart meds?

And yes I think these patient directed marketing campaigns are for the birds. But I suspect that as in most every other country, that is on the way out.

The acutual marketing of medical services that they don't understand to consumers/patients AND having a third party pay the bill. Well I can't imagine how just writing it one could not see its a system designed to fail. This procedure, that procedure, ok I am not paying anyway. Loose weight, quit smoking? hey if worse comes to worse I can always have this or that procedure.

I am not blaming people. I think they dont completely understand the gravity of some of what they are doing. And there is really not much help out there for them to stop it. And most of all not much motivation to change if you think most everything can be "fixed" like it is on tv.

If there was reimbursement for preventative medicine, thats where the emphasis would be. But its just not there. The emphasis is on selling procedures and I dont like the idea of being a cog in that wheel.

Especially an overworked cog who has someones life in their hands.

And I mean in what other "profession" do grown people get "written up" and recieve "dimarets"-not sure spelling? Or escorted out of the building when they are let go. All of this is so insulting. Why treat employees so bad. Do they just want them to quit? Or are they trying to justify their own existence?

I am trying to remember that there are many people that are helped. But just thinking about the way that some of management treat clinical staff burns me. DO these people think they will never get sick? Are they immortal?

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oh my gosh...you guys are scaring the crap outta me!!! i almost quit my lpn program 10 days before graduation and decided to stick it out (little conflict of professional ethics on instructor's part). now i'm in the rn program and wow......i'm in for a real treat, aren't i???:chair:

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Specializes in Acute Care Psych, DNP Student.
oh my gosh...you guys are scaring the crap outta me!!! i almost quit my lpn program 10 days before graduation and decided to stick it out (little conflict of professional ethics on instructor's part). now i'm in the rn program and wow......i'm in for a real treat, aren't i???:chair:

i would imagine it will go just fine for you in the rn program. things usually do go just fine...it's the unusual doozies we end up talking about on allnurses.

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Specializes in Telemetry.

"I would imagine it will go just fine for you in the RN program. Things usually do go just fine...it's the unusual doozies we end up talking about on allnurses. "

See I've heard that sentiment alot on this website and I really don't understand. I don't think that if an event occurs at least once a week that it would be something you would consider "unusual" or out of the ordinary. I end up crying or being severly depressed AT LEAST 1 in 3 shifts. Yesterday a charge nurse of mine (a really great one who works her butt off and has been a nurse for 15 or more years) was crying because she was overwhelmed. Here is the thing. I've asked around to people I know in other professions, people who don't really even like their job in some cases, and not one of them has told me that they cry or get severly depressed at least once a week at their job. In fact when was asking around they looked at me like I'm crazy. Thus I have come to the conclusion that no matter what anyone has to say about the greatness of nursing, there is something severly wrong with a profession that causes the majority of workers to utterly overwhelmed on a regular basis. Even if you take into count the fact that it would be normal to cry/be very upset when a patient you happened to also like a lot dies or gets worse, nurses are still more often upset by being overwhelmed and frustrated. In 9 months I've cried with/for 2 of my patients and I can tell you that in the last 9 months I've cried WAY more than twice while at work.

I think wanting to care for people is noble. I think most of us who chose to become nurses decided to because we believe that caring for people is noble and wonderful. I think long before nurses get out of nursing school we understand that nursing is hard work and, for the most part, are prepaired to work hard to do our job well. But to tell new nurses, or even believe at all, that being utterly overwhelmed, severly overworked, and snubbed on a regular basis is "normal", "something you'll get use to", "part of the job", is ridiculous. Do you know why I think the first year of nursing is so hard? It is not just the vast amount of information comming at you, it is also the fact that in the first year of nursing you have to learn not to care so much.

I realize things are better professionally for nurses than it use to be, but you know what? That's like saying that racial equality is better than it use to be. Yes things are a lot better, but we're not quite at equal yet either. Does that mean that we should stop trying to get there? When people complain about the issues is all we have to tell them is that it use to be worse? How does that help anyone have any hope?

*Sigh* I'll get off my rant now. I want to see the silver lining but I'm not sure there is one. Granted I've only worked in two areas of healthcare (ER and stepdown/telemetry) so maybe I have not found my place in the system yet. I've been checking out public health and have a smidge of hope I might find things better there. I just hate how I can remember when I had faith in my doctor and saw a hospital as a place where people go for help. Now I find that I am very skeptical of most doctors and see hospitals as death traps. I fear for my family's health, not because they are sick but because I don't see that there is anyone really trustworthy for them to go to for treatment. That makes me very sad and not really proud of what I do at all.

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Specializes in psyche, dialysis, community health.

KallipsoRed wrote:

"I realize things are better professionally for nurses than it use to be, but you know what? That's like saying that racial equality is better than it use to be. Yes things are a lot better, but we're not quite at equal yet either. Does that mean that we should stop trying to get there? When people complain about the issues is all we have to tell them is that it use to be worse? How does that help anyone have any hope?"

Amen.

And If anyone ever tells you but "we have overcome." They need (re)read letter from a birmingham jail. As King put it, "This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.'

If I stepped over the TOA, I apologize.

dig

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Specializes in ED, Rehab, LTC.

You can always change your mind about nursing once you finish school, but if you drop out now you won't have a choice and you might regret it later. Your loans will be the same whether you drop out now or finish the next three months, right???

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