Burned out and hate nursing

Nurses Stress 101

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Since I was a little girl, I have always wanted to be a nurse. I wanted to help people. I wanted to heal. Now 4 years out of nursing school, I HATE nursing with a passion. I am a med/surg nurse with a BSN.

Reasons I hate nurses (in no particular order)

1. Most days I feel like a pill-pusher. I don't feel like I make a difference.

2. Doctors feel they are perfect.

3. Patient satisfaction scores.

4. Patient sense of entitlement. (see #3)

5. Family at the bedside dictating what they want...like I am their personal servant. I have to comply (see #3).

6. Lack of appreciation mized with how much more work can they give us.

7. Nights, weekends, and holiday. I don't want to give everything I've got only to see no return in work satisfaction.

I don't want to be a case manager. I don't want home health nursing. I really want to be outside of the hospital. Quite honestly, I want to be away from people. I would be quite content to work on a computer and have email interactions. Preferably work from home. Any suggestions?

I am curious to know how you were able to get a medical review job. I was very unhappy, stressed, and drained by bedside nursing which I did for just over 4 years. I left my last job but still currently unemployed. I feel stuck, and I am not sure how to go about branching out into a non beside nursing position such as yours. Any advice would be helpful.

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Specializes in Assisted Living Nurse Manager.
I am curious to know how you were able to get a medical review job. I was very unhappy stressed, and drained by bedside nursing which I did for just over 4 years. I left my last job but still currently unemployed. I feel stuck, and I am not sure how to go about branching out into a non beside nursing position such as yours. Any advice would be helpful.[/quote']

Hello cece400,

Just start applying to insurance companies. Sounds like you would have enough experience to do a position like medical review. In my résumé I made it a point to highlight the specialties I have worked to show my varied work experience that would benefit them in the medical review dept.

I wish you the best!

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Online nursing instructor! With many colleges, community schools and the like going online, you could teach completely online and from home.

Additionally, with all of the virtual high schools popping up, you could teach high school health or some other course--I would email or call the guidance counselors of some schools in your area.

Another thought is a number of schools have adult ed online courses--some in different "healthy living" categories. That is another thought.

Some insurance companies hire RN's to review cases, as do lawyers. I know you said case managment wasn't your thing, but case review may be.

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Specializes in L and D.
Since I was a little girl, I have always wanted to be a nurse. I wanted to help people. I wanted to heal. Now 4 years out of nursing school, I HATE nursing with a passion. I am a med/surg nurse with a BSN.

Reasons I hate nurses (in no particular order)

1. Most days I feel like a pill-pusher. I don't feel like I make a difference.

2. Doctors feel they are perfect.

3. Patient satisfaction scores.

4. Patient sense of entitlement. (see #3)

5. Family at the bedside dictating what they want...like I am their personal servant. I have to comply (see #3).

6. Lack of appreciation mized with how much more work can they give us.

7. Nights, weekends, and holiday. I don't want to give everything I've got only to see no return in work satisfaction.

I don't want to be a case manager. I don't want home health nursing. I really want to be outside of the hospital. Quite honestly, I want to be away from people. I would be quite content to work on a computer and have email interactions. Preferably work from home. Any suggestions?

AMEN!!! I have got to get out of the dang hospital. I'm so so so sick of floor nursing

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Specializes in ICU.

I want out of the Hospital so bad. Been there almost 10 years. I can't stand it anymore. I have become such a miserable, bitter person that hates most people now because of all the crap from administration, and demanding/unreasonable patients and families.

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Specializes in ICU.

I am so sick of PATIENT/FAMILY satisfaction!!!! If hospitals would actually give a crap about NURSES satisfaction, gave nurses input into policy changes and practices, didn't blame nursing for almost everything.......maybe we'd be happier. Which in return would increase the beloved patient/family satisfaction scores!

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Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so this is mine and please don't hate me for it. I cannot stand nursing. I have been a nurse for 7 years and worked in many different hospitals and and in many different patient care areas and levels of acuity. For many of the same reasons posted here, I feel like I go through the 5 stages of grief every day before I go to work. I've had many other nurses and people try to convince me that I'm wrong and that this IS a good profession. But the truth is in my opinion - it's not. Nurses are underpaid, over-worked, take the blunt end of patient/patient family verbal/physical/emotional abuse and somehow are supposed to be okay with it, while having ever-increasing workloads forced upon them. People say you can vent or talk to someone at work...pfff are you kidding me? But it's been a while now and I've finally decided to get a plan and jump ship. Even then i get resistance for trying to get out. If you tell people you are going to go into nursing, they think you're some kind of angel. Tell people you are leaving the field and they look at you like you committed a horrific crime and demonize you for it. Well, they can talk all they want. Some people will pass it off as "that's just the nature of the beast," but if that's it then why in the heck would I want to continue doing this? I'm not going to lie, but when I think about nursing...I do get passionate...but probably in the wrong way. I know I have snapped more than a few clip boards in half when I got home. Good days at work are so far and rare in between that it gets depressing even thinking about it. Also, it kills me inside that nursing is a very thank-LESS profession, when patients/families come into the hospital - all mannerisms go right out the window. Normal people aren't the ones who say please and thank-you, normal is to be needy, greedy, whinny, complaining, and "witchy (substitution for a less appropriate word)" - not to mention the verbal threats (if not physical) and yelling. I mean, who in their right mind would think it's okay to just yell at complete stranger? Also, I have had more than enough patients purposefully urinate on my shoes for even the oddest of reasons. And worst of all, because of the big focus on super awesome customer satisfaction, I almost have to apologize to them and say "I'm sorry, what did I do to make you want to pee on my shoes?" Whatever man, I'm done....just wish I would have realized the situation earlier. Feel free to comment and there's no intention of offending anyone (esp. other nurses) - just venting.

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Specializes in Telemetry.

Cliff,

This post really cracked me up. I love browsing through this site to see the various insights of the nursing field. I'm just getting past my first year of nursing on a cardiac/telemetry floor (which has now seemed to turn into the dumping grounds, med-surg, dementia, nursing home, cardiac, telemetry, behavioral health, and hospice floor). I can definitely say that I relate to a lot of the things you mentioned. I have to keep telling myself something has to give, and perhaps I am just in the wrong care area. I am in the process of transitioning to CCU with the hopes that my boss and fellow co-workers will make the job a little more pleasurable. However, until that point in time I have to keep fighting with what's left of my sanity, emotional stability, and job satisfaction. I can't truly say that I HATE nursing, as hate is particularly strong word. I do however feel that I have a sour attitude toward nursing in general. I don't quite regret my decision to go into the nursing field, seeing as I probably would despise a "corporate America" job. However, bedside nursing, micro-managing, attitudes from co-workers, the "I don't give a **** morale", and just about everything else you listed, does make a person question their job satisfaction.

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Specializes in ICU / PCU / Telemetry / Oncology.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion so this is mine and please don't hate me for it. I cannot stand nursing. I have been a nurse for 7 years and worked in many different hospitals and and in many different patient care areas and levels of acuity. For many of the same reasons posted here, I feel like I go through the 5 stages of grief every day before I go to work. I've had many other nurses and people try to convince me that I'm wrong and that this IS a good profession. But the truth is in my opinion - it's not. Nurses are underpaid, over-worked, take the blunt end of patient/patient family verbal/physical/emotional abuse and somehow are supposed to be okay with it, while having ever-increasing workloads forced upon them. People say you can vent or talk to someone at work...pfff are you kidding me? But it's been a while now and I've finally decided to get a plan and jump ship. Even then i get resistance for trying to get out. If you tell people you are going to go into nursing, they think you're some kind of angel. Tell people you are leaving the field and they look at you like you committed a horrific crime and demonize you for it. Well, they can talk all they want. Some people will pass it off as "that's just the nature of the beast," but if that's it then why in the heck would I want to continue doing this? I'm not going to lie, but when I think about nursing...I do get passionate...but probably in the wrong way. I know I have snapped more than a few clip boards in half when I got home. Good days at work are so far and rare in between that it gets depressing even thinking about it. Also, it kills me inside that nursing is a very thank-LESS profession, when patients/families come into the hospital - all mannerisms go right out the window. Normal people aren't the ones who say please and thank-you, normal is to be needy, greedy, whinny, complaining, and "witchy (substitution for a less appropriate word)" - not to mention the verbal threats (if not physical) and yelling. I mean, who in their right mind would think it's okay to just yell at complete stranger? Also, I have had more than enough patients purposefully urinate on my shoes for even the oddest of reasons. And worst of all, because of the big focus on super awesome customer satisfaction, I almost have to apologize to them and say "I'm sorry, what did I do to make you want to pee on my shoes?" Whatever man, I'm done....just wish I would have realized the situation earlier. Feel free to comment and there's no intention of offending anyone (esp. other nurses) - just venting.[/quote']

I felt the same way you described, in my profession before nursing. I changed careers for nursing and have never been happier! We are clearly two different people. However, I suggest you pursue another career path that brings you more satisfaction. Life is too short to have to endure this agony long term, and nursing hours are way too long to do something you hate.

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I can so relate to most of the posters on this thread. Feeling beaten-up, abused. If it's not the doctors making you feel like crap, it's the patients, and if it's not the patients, it's their family members. Or even your staff, the people you are supposed to pull together with to service the patients. We had an expression at my last job to describe a certain hellish night. A "Cluster---k". (A "CF" for short.) When everything that could go wrong, did, and we were short-handed to start with, because management had the idea that because patients sleep at night, fewer staff are needed.

Word to management, patients do NOT sleep at night. The patients with mental problems or anxiety kick up their anxieties at night, and right at shift change at 7 pm, everybody needs a soda or ice or the potty. Without fail, then those certain anxious patients/families will stay on the call light all night. For sodas. For an extra pilllow/blanket. "Can I get my pain pill?" Nurse trots off to PYXIS, drags med cart into room, makes sure patient/family has ice/soda. Scans pill, hands pill to patient. Patient takes pill. As nurse prepares to leave room (seeing other call lights going off in her area), patient says, "Oh, can I get my Xanax/Soma/Valium/Phenergan, too?"

Nurse cheerfully says, "Sure!", walks outside the room where only staff can see her, and puts an imaginary gun to her temple and pulls the trigger, to the accompaniment of lots of call lights going off around her. And people wonder why nurses burn out and never want to go near another human being again.

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Bedside nursing seems to be getting worse by each second. I transferred to a critical care unit thinking I will be able to gain more skills and learn more things only to realize the crap that nurses have to deal with are taken to the nth power in the critical care unit. The egos of the doctors, PAs, and even the other nursing staff is ridiculous. We are suppose to be a team, that word is a JOKE in healthcare. I feel like an army of one.The lack of respect from other staff members I really can't take it. I have just had it. Yet I am suppose do my job with a smile on my face for good show. Well to hell with that mess. Yet the floor wonders why so many people are leaving and going else where. I am just biding my time and when the opportunity peaks it head out , i will take it and run!!!!

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Bedside nursing seems to be getting worse by each second. I transferred to a critical care unit thinking I will be able to gain more skills and learn more things only to realize the crap that nurses have to deal with are taken to the nth power in the critical care unit. The egos of the doctors, PAs, and even the other nursing staff is ridiculous. We are suppose to be a team, that word is a JOKE in healthcare. I feel like an army of one.The lack of respect from other staff members I really can't take it. I have just had it. Yet I am suppose do my job with a smile on my face for good show. Well to hell with that mess. Yet the floor wonders why so many people are leaving and going else where. I am just biding my time and when the opportunity peaks it head out , i will take it and run!!!!

I haven't had that experience at all. My unit has wonderful team work, and I find that I am treated respectfully by most of the staff I encounter. I wish everyone had that experience.

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