Burned out and hate nursing

[RN1023]

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?

[sonia211, BSN]

I have made the change to a new position as a Nursing Supervisor and I love it. Now I get to help floor nurses in ways that I wished my manager would help me out. I never thought that I would like this position so much. They gave me an office however most of the time I'm on the floor with my nurses. I would not go back to bedside nursing if they paid me double. I truly am happy now!

[stickit34]

Just closing in on my first year of nursing and I can say I'm feeling the burnout too. I can truly say I hate my job, which is on a tele med-surg, is always short-staffed with favoritism clearly flaunted all around, but I won't say I hate nursing. I hate my entitled patients who feel that their water should NEVER go without ice, and pain seekers who are on the call bell every two hours RIGHT ON THE DOT for their 2mg of Dilaudid while laughing and eating a cheeseburger whilst requesting it. I hate being the verbal/physical punching bag and being scared poop-less of going into work because I might be punched in the face by a patient with dementia/ pain-seeker who's angry they didn't get their Dilaudid PCA with a 75mcg of Fentanyl patch, 15mg of Valium, 15mg of oxycodone and 2 mg of Dilaudid AT THE SAME TIME / old person with a UTI. I'll be the honest the deal breaker is the last one, being a victim of physical abuse before.

And the worst thing is management is A) Always on vacation B) Shrugs off your complaint and tells you to deal with it and my favorite, C) "It can't be that bad at night, everyone sleeps!"

[gcupid]

I should hold up a fire extinguisher for all the flaming I'm about to get...

What is the SES of the area your hospital serves?

If you work inner city or in a poorer area, some of these patients feel that the govt will take care of them and have a very bizarre sense of entitlement, considering they don't pay for much at all. They are frequently pts who come in for things they could have managed from home or out patient , but they didn't, either due to finances or plain ignorance, and now they are back in the hospital. They resent returning and we get burned out caring for them.

A couple nurses at my lower SES area hospital have taken up prn shifts in a nicer side of town, the suburbs, etc and find that many pts and their families are more educated, compliant and thankful.

As nurses, we never know the full story behind our pts and it is arrogant of us to assume we do. Not all lower income, low education, inner city patients are difficult, rude and whatnot. I can only imagine that the more well to do pts have a whole 'nother brand of entitlement. But it seems to be less, according to my coworkers.

Just my $0.02

In my years of nursing, I found the opposite to be true. I have a preference to take care of lower socioeconomic patients at times. I have had examples of higher income earners acting a complete *** because the hospital was not a 5 star hotel/restaurant and they expected things to get done at an impossibly fast rate. Rude, snobbish, manipulative, argumentative, letter writing, LoL!

You never know what you are going to get from these patients. I look at each one individually.

[TU RN, DNP, CRNA]

I love this post and have been referencing back on it time and again since I started on this site. I would really like to see an update from the OP but I don't think they're active anymore. I didn't want to be a nurse from an early age like the OP, nor did I really have any need to heal people, but I did always visit the shut-ins through my church as a kid and I liked helping people. As an aside, not only nurses "help people," but anybody who does anything for anybody. A trash man helps people by carrying off their trash, janitor by cleaning, bank tellers by completing bank transactions et cetera. We get paid (and well) for what we do so that kinda knocks the "altruism" bit down a few pegs... which leaves us as normal working people like everybody else. Being a nurse doesn't make you special, not like any of us really feel that way anyway. At least I hope not.

Nursing was a backup plan for me, plain and simple, and I do an acceptable/fair job at it (that is, not a great job, but not a horrible job either). The writing was on the wall in nursing school, where I did well in class but dreaded clinical which is the meat and potatoes of nursing in general. Then again as a CNA where so many interactions with patients ended up being arguments or bargains for various food/drinks topped with pain pills from the RN just so I could check their damn blood sugar. Currently my sentiment is.. I just don't like interacting with/"serving" the general public. There also seems to be a perpetual competition between healthcare professionals over whose power or knowledge is greater which is a drag. Nights and weekends suck too. These pushes from management to improve our communication/patient satisfaction seem to be too similar to the talks I got from my manager when I worked in an ice cream shop at the age of 15-16. I may as well be working there again with all of the grief and complaints I'm bombarded with from every direction.

I'm planning to get away from the bedside and then I think I'll move on to a different field (once my loans are paid off) while I'm young and unmarried. Many people seem to have nice stories moving from a non-nursing career to nursing. I think many career changers are dissatisfied with their first career only to find happiness in a second, which I like to believe is due to the experience and maturity gained in that first one. Maybe fate (God, destiny, whatever) required me to be a nurse first so I could move on to my true calling.

[Dranger]

Just closing in on my first year of nursing and I can say I'm feeling the burnout too. I can truly say I hate my job, which is on a tele med-surg, is always short-staffed with favoritism clearly flaunted all around, but I won't say I hate nursing. I hate my entitled patients who feel that their water should NEVER go without ice, and pain seekers who are on the call bell every two hours RIGHT ON THE DOT for their 2mg of Dilaudid while laughing and eating a cheeseburger whilst requesting it. I hate being the verbal/physical punching bag and being scared poop-less of going into work because I might be punched in the face by a patient with dementia/ pain-seeker who's angry they didn't get their Dilaudid PCA with a 75mcg of Fentanyl patch, 15mg of Valium, 15mg of oxycodone and 2 mg of Dilaudid AT THE SAME TIME / old person with a UTI. I'll be the honest the deal breaker is the last one, being a victim of physical abuse before.

And the worst thing is management is A) Always on vacation B) Shrugs off your complaint and tells you to deal with it and my favorite, C) "It can't be that bad at night, everyone sleeps!"

I am not afraid of abuse anymore, I have had coherent (non-coherent are a different story) patients threaten to harm me and I just say go ahead and try it. Anyone who is coherent and tries to hit, push or lunge at me WILL get dropped on the floor and I will vigorously fight back. My job isn't even worth it to not do so. I am a human and expect to be treated as such.

[Dranger]

I love this post and have been referencing back on it time and again since I started on this site. I would really like to see an update from the OP but I don't think they're active anymore. I didn't want to be a nurse from an early age like the OP, nor did I really have any need to heal people, but I did always visit the shut-ins through my church as a kid and I liked helping people. As an aside, not only nurses "help people," but anybody who does anything for anybody. A trash man helps people by carrying off their trash, janitor by cleaning, bank tellers by completing bank transactions et cetera. We get paid (and well) for what we do so that kinda knocks the "altruism" bit down a few pegs... which leaves us as normal working people like everybody else. Being a nurse doesn't make you special, not like any of us really feel that way anyway. At least I hope not.

Nursing was a backup plan for me, plain and simple, and I do an acceptable/fair job at it (that is, not a great job, but not a horrible job either). The writing was on the wall in nursing school, where I did well in class but dreaded clinical which is the meat and potatoes of nursing in general. Then again as a CNA where so many interactions with patients ended up being arguments or bargains for various food/drinks topped with pain pills from the RN just so I could check their damn blood sugar. Currently my sentiment is.. I just don't like interacting with/"serving" the general public. There also seems to be a perpetual competition between healthcare professionals over whose power or knowledge is greater which is a drag. Nights and weekends suck too. These pushes from management to improve our communication/patient satisfaction seem to be too similar to the talks I got from my manager when I worked in an ice cream shop at the age of 15-16. I may as well be working there again with all of the grief and complaints I'm bombarded with from every direction.

I'm planning to get away from the bedside and then I think I'll move on to a different field (once my loans are paid off) while I'm young and unmarried. Many people seem to have nice stories moving from a non-nursing career to nursing. I think many career changers are dissatisfied with their first career only to find happiness in a second, which I like to believe is due to the experience and maturity gained in that first one. Maybe fate (God, destiny, whatever) required me to be a nurse first so I could move on to my true calling.

That's exactly me, I feel close to done sometimes with doing this anymore ( to an extant, for now I need to work till PA/med school becomes a reality). I want to be writing orders and not fulfilling them like a minion. Once in a while I would like managers to remember what its like to be a staff RN and shove those patient satisfaction scores and productivity graphs in the trash. Also regarding patients I would just like to see more "nice" people. Yeah the hospital isn't fun but that doesn't mean you dump all of your common courtesy at the door....I mean if they had any to begin with.

The only nurses I know who stayed bedside 10+ years (I've seen 30+...) had no choice and needed to support their family because they were single parents etc. There is no way in hell this job is sustainable (IMO) for more than 5-10 years at least not with my patient population and hospital management.

I used to like talking and working with people and maybe as a provider I will rekindle that fondness. Even so I still think I do a good job and get kudos cards from quite a few patients but often I feel fake when delivering service. I know a lot of professionalism is about keeping a facade but it gets old after a while and I just think there are better avenues to make money and stay within healthcare without beating yourself up day after day.

Here's hoping med/PA school changes that.

[melosa08]

I'm hoping a change to the OR will help. I feel like I would still enjoy nursing, just not in my current area for sure. Burned out and screwed over is what I encountered each shift...

[sonia211, BSN]

I love this post and have been referencing back on it time and again since I started on this site. I would really like to see an update from the OP but I don't think they're active anymore. I didn't want to be a nurse from an early age like the OP, nor did I really have any need to heal people, but I did always visit the shut-ins through my church as a kid and I liked helping people. As an aside, not only nurses "help people," but anybody who does anything for anybody. A trash man helps people by carrying off their trash, janitor by cleaning, bank tellers by completing bank transactions et cetera. We get paid (and well) for what we do so that kinda knocks the "altruism" bit down a few pegs... which leaves us as normal working people like everybody else. Being a nurse doesn't make you special, not like any of us really feel that way anyway. At least I hope not.

I am the OP. I commented on page 20 as to my updated status. Please check.

[kalevra, BSN, RN]

I mop my own rooms. How do you folks think I feel about my current career path.

For the record my coworkers are a mix of ADN, BSN and MSN. We all have to mop our own rooms. Working bedside = Maid Work. We talk about our critical thinking skills, higher education etc. Yet here we are mopping floors, taking out the trash, taking out the laundry, wiping poop, fetching snacks etc. Not what I had envisioned.

I keep telling myself its only temporary until I meet minimum requirements for where I want to go.

Also would like to note, proper staffing would be nice.

[tokmom, BSN, RN]

Whatever, you do, you need to figure out what is your best fit. All areas of nursing have some sort of burnout and compassion fatigue ranging from mild to severe. In my opinion, until you figure out what caused it in the first place and what works to heal yourself, you may succumb again.

[GoodMK1]

That is one of things I am worried about. I am really thinking about going into Cardiovascular technology. I just wonder if it is the same?

[RK694]

I have been in and out of nursing for several years. I only go back in when I absolutely have to - like now. I don't care how much these nursing entities like the ANA and others emphasize that nursing is a "professional" career. They can say this all they want but the fact is, most nurses are treated like slaves by management, patients, patients' families, some doctors and the worst offenders are other nurses!

I have a few different careers and the only career where I experience such bullying, hostility, stress, physical hardship, disrespect, etc., is in nursing. It is a horrible job. No one really wants to do patient care. It just gets worse and worse as the years go by, too - not better!

Right now I am doing this homecare case. This is a 350 lb Hispanic woman on Medicaid - you talk about entitlement! She treats the nurses like servants. I have only been with her 2 weeks and I am leaving. She is verbally abusive, and frankly, disgusting. She expects the nurses to move her fat ass in bed the way SHE SAYS to be moved - expecting us to not use proper body mechanics. Screw this. Her husband enables this woman's abusive behaviors. The agency dropped her once and agreed to take her on again. She has one of those ancient hospital beds that is not high enough so it hurts my back. Remember those old beds with the railings you pull the knob to lower them? You always pinch your fingers in the railing of these old beds. She also has one of those steel trachs that they used over 30-40 years ago. I don't know ANY nurses who actually like being a nurse.