Burned out!!!!!!!!

Published

I find myself wondering at times why I went into this profession. Does anyone else get annoyed with healthcare today? The sense of entitlement has rolled over to healthcare and the "have it your way" attitude prevails and the powers that be encourage this attitude. Instead of backing up your nurses, you curtail to the insane family members and demands of the often equally insane patients. I find a total lack of personal responsibility in our society and that has carried over to the healthcare industry. Does anyone else feel like this? Between having to fill out hourly rounding papers, open visiting hours and endless charting, I feel like my job is a cross between pushign papers and being an indentured servant to the patient's and their families. Anyone else feel like this?

I don't find the kissing your pts. butt as much of a problem where I work as it is in the civilian world. THANK GOODNESS!!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, home health, public health.

With all my respects... but finish nursing school first, get to work in a hospital, and then talk about what you know. I appreciate you point out things that are valuable as having a job/job security. But I betcha your Pollyanna mentality won't last... Mine did not and I was soooo happy to finally get my degree and be able to go to work. Now I dread it...

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Geez...does anyone actually like their damn job? Seems like all anyone ever does on this site is moan and complain. Does anyone have anything pos to say or is it really just that bad.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTC.
Geez...does anyone actually like their damn job? Seems like all anyone ever does on this site is moan and complain. Does anyone have anything pos to say or is it really just that bad.

Unfortunately, for a lot of nurses, yes it is "just that bad." I've only been an LPN for 5 years and had always assumed I would go on for my RN; now I'm at a point where Starbuck's at $8 per hour is sounding better than what I've seen the RN's I've worked with go through. Most of our days are spent working on not getting in trouble and making management and the state/feds happy. When I am able to spend time actually caring for and educating patients, it's magical. But it always comes back to being overshadowed by not CYA'ing enough, not documenting enough, impatient management who is not willing to tolerate anybody who is not Supernurse, and weaknessess being pointed out rather than strengths being built up.

Along with every other experienced nurse on this thread, I'm just so tired. 5 years ago, all I wanted to do was help and make a fair wage doing it. I had no idea my desire to help would come with so many damn strings attached.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I don't blame anyone for wanting to get out of the nursing profession entirely. I hate it when nurses say you should try another area of nursing. But the truth of the matter is..it does not matter where you work as a nurse, because nursing is nursing no matter where you work!! I have been feeling the burn out for the past 5 years. The only reason most of us stay in this thankless, tiresome, uncaring, insensitive, and stressful profession is that we can't afford not stay in it. I would definitely get out of this profession in a heart beat if offered a job doing anything else. But with the economy the way it is..no one is hiring anyone for anything unless you have experience or have done it before. Now I am in the IPN program and being in this program makes it that much more apparent that I want to get out of this profession. For the amount of time I am required to participate in the IPN, the money I am supposed to pay for being in this program could be used towards going back to school for something I would actually enjoy calling a career. Nursing is definitely not what it used to be. Your time is not spent with the patient, but spent behind paperwork, computers, and sitting behind a desk. Hospitals take away staffing, don't allow overtime, and yet still expect more and do it with smile and don't make any mistakes or you can basically be replaced. Well..enough I say!!!!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Peds Homecare.

I've been a nurse for 30 years. Wow, have things changed, and not for the better. The respect I enjoyed for the first 10 or 15 years is gone. First of all agencies no longer back their nurses up either. When I first started doing homecare, if a family complained, they had to have a specific instance of why they were complaining. Then it would be investigated, now they'll just say, I don't want that nurse to come back. Immediately, ok, no problem, sorry you were unhappy, we'll just get you another nurse. Here's an example, family with young son, complicated medical issues, nursing shifts covered before pt discharged to home. Kept the first nurse for days, one day, asks evening nurse to take days. Kept that nurse 2 weeks, complains, he's gone. Next nurse takes day shift, oh we just love her. 6 weeks later, she's gone too. Now I love my agency, and my boss, but agency we get alot of cases from, including this one, still has no clue that this family is unrealistic, "mom" of child, and "case manager", good friends. This continues until every high tech peds nurse in our agency has been sent away. Our agency finally gets it, big agency, nope. The last I knew they still had the case on the list, just described it different. Now when I first started working high tech peds cases, this family would have been talked to after the 3rd or 4th nurse they said don't come back to. No more, just get another nurse, orient them, and then the family complains again. Some of these families you just can't please no matter what you do. Others are a joy the minute you walk into the home, appreciative of everything. But the complainers are starting to outweigh the joyful ones. I know I don't have the stresses of you nurses who work in hospitals, with numerous patients, but I just wanted to say I feel your pain, and no part of nursing is immune to this attitude, this entitlement. I don't know what we are going to do, to make it better, or make things change so we all don't want to pull our hair out. I guess I'll sign this heartbroken, but still plodding along. Hugs to my comrades in the trenches.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTC, Home Health.

Burned out? Hell, I might as well be a piece of charcoal. Having just quit the most stressful, mismanaged, chronically understaffed facility it's been my misfortune to endure, I can finally breathe again. When it comes down to your sanity, your license and your piece of mind, the economy doesn't really seem to matter very much. In fact, when I clocked out at the end of my shift and walked out those doors this morning, I didn't give a big rat's rear if I had to eat mac & cheese for a month of Sundays, at least I never have to go back in that place again! That moment is the salvation of the burned out.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Med-Surg Nursing.
Burned out? Hell, I might as well be a piece of charcoal. Having just quit the most stressful, mismanaged, chronically understaffed facility it's been my misfortune to endure, I can finally breathe again. When it comes down to your sanity, your license and your piece of mind, the economy doesn't really seem to matter very much. In fact, when I clocked out at the end of my shift and walked out those doors this morning, I didn't give a big rat's rear if I had to eat mac & cheese for a month of Sundays, at least I never have to go back in that place again! That moment is the salvation of the burned out.

I'm working at a place like this now! I am NOT looking forward to going back to work there and would quit tomorrow if it weren't for the fact that I've got bills to pay and my husband has been laid off for over a year with no job prospects in sight. I've got a job interview on Tuesday and I hope and PRAY I get it because I REALLY need a new job. The place I work at is bad and there's good reason it has the worst reputation in the community it serves.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTC, Home Health.

Best of luck with your interview Lou. When you've worked in the sewer, there's no place to go but up!:)

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I am sooo happy I found some RNs that speak honestly and openly about their burnout ! I am RN with 7 years of experience in med-surg, endo and psych. This is my second profession and this is the only reason I am not going back to college.I also feel burned out, coming from work with hudge headaches and fear that I might forgot to do something or did something wrong .I have managed to sustain an opinion as "responsible, sufficient and detail oriented" but at a cost of constant anxiety. I am depressed over the fact that I don't see "the light at the end of the tunnel" :crying2: and so far I had no luck in finding a nursing department that would fit me.I entered the nursing field for many reasons : job security, more money, compassion for other people and general interest in medicine.I like caring for other people but I hate all other aspects like dealing with rude and insane MDs, unreasonable expectations from management, overwhelming work load, being in the middle of the chaos with everybody treating You like a "dumping ground":down:.The sad thing is that we - actually our NURSING LEADERS caused all these problems for us trying to prove that the nurses are so smart and capable and taking on more and more responsibilities...:uhoh3:. Our leaders simply forgot how it is to work the floor because they are too busy attending conferences and writing more policies adding more paperwork everyday...We have to do the work of pharmacist, MD , therapist, lab tech, nursing assistant , teacher and the list goes on...I did not see that on the job description of the beautifully painted RN profile in nursing school...and silly me making "big eyes " when I have learned about Foley cath. at nursing school "I have to do what ?!!!!:eek:.Anyway, thanks for listening and good luck to all of You, my friends.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTC.

I hear ya on the mac & cheese comment! I've only been an LPN for 5 years but when I quit a job last August I felt the same way. Found another job and was fired, unjustly from my perspective. It's not even so much the work itself that does it; like another poster mentioned, it's the mentality that pervades so much of management; the last year or so, I feel like my main nursing duty is trying my darndest to grow eyes in the back of my head so that I can avoid "getting in trouble." Who needs that?

Recently I was recruited to join a multi-level-marketing company that sells pleasure enhancement products and "bedroom accessories" in a party format (sort of a naughty Tupperware deal, lol). My sponsor told me that one of the most successful people she knows locally is an RN who started it part-time and quit nursing to pursue this fulltime as the money was about the same and the stress WAY lower. Oddly enough (or maybe NOT so oddly) the company itself was also founded by an RN. We'll see how it goes; there's so little work in my area for LPNs right now anyway. :)

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Amen to what you all said. After 20 years, I think I'm done. It's sad because I like what I do, just too tired of administration that knows squat, managers that lie about anything and everything to get you on a shift no one will take and then strands you there with the old..."we don't have another position right now", when you know at least 5 people had just quit in your department. Now it's 6, and at least 3-4 have left after i did. I've sit around 6 months looking at nursing jobs and not 1 appeals to me, i expect the same crap anywhere i go. I was an awesome nurse, i still am, but i saw substandard care, understaffing and management that always blames the employees instead of their own bad choices. If I say more, someone may recognize my situation and if word got back, my wife would be fired, this hospital is real big on retribution. I could write a book on the failings of this hospital in the last 4 years, some of it has cost lives. It got to the point I was afraid someone would die on my watch because of the poor understanding of what a trauma center is by administration. You need to exceed the need in dealing with trauma, not barely meet the minimum and have to pray the equipment you need is available. 2-3 weeks after i quit; word is, someone died for the exact problems i had outlined to them so many times, and again in my exit interview; yet they blow it off and continue on anyway. I wonder if they care now? Only if they couldn't cover it up.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion