Burnout In ER

Drysolong · Apr 4, 2006

with the exception of few years doing home care, i've been doing er since i began nursing in 1990. i've done a little icu, pacu and other "critical care" areas, but mainly er. i'm currently doing the agency thing. none of the internal politics and total scheduling freedom. but, still i find myself wanting something different. i am an er nurse 100%. couldn't get into any other standard nursing work. but, i'm bored and burnt.
does anyone have an idea of something where my experience and background might be useful and needed?
been thinking a nice little er in the boonies could be good. no crack-heads or tweekers. no homeless looking for "3 hots and a cot". no primadonna er docs... does such a place exist?
kev702

don't know, just graduated. however, the "boonies" may have less crack-heads, tweekers, & homeless & primadonna docs.

i also wonder if such a place exists, although i personally prefer what you have right now. for a little while, at least

student4ever · Apr 4, 2006

ever wonder just where people manufacture all those illegal drugs? a lot gets made out here in the boonies - plenty of room for meth labs and such, and less attention as fewer people around... not to mention narcotic seekers who hurt their backs catchin chickens and got hooked on their pain meds... more wierdos who know NOTHING about healthcare than you've ever seen in your life, more "dumber than a box of bricks" patients - with their 20 children in tow, along with 50 relatives - the family trees look more like topiaries - not to mention when a family feuds, there is LOTS of gunshots and knife wounds to go around... the boonies ain't so quiet!!! And there are primadonna docs everywhere - it's like the plague!

ImaERtraumaRN · Apr 4, 2006

A friend of mine just went to critical care transport for the same reasons. One on one, or TWO on one pt. care, no primadonna docs. They *do* transport our crackheads and other mental health patients, but there arent as many as make it into our ED just for some "special pampering". He is loving the change and I am considering following his footsteps after a couple more years.

LoriAlabamaRN · Apr 5, 2006

How about traveling? You could probably sepcify the type of ER you wanted, have tons of variety and still maintain your self-scheduling... and see the country to boot!

allnurses Guide · Apr 5, 2006

Have you ever thought of doing camp nursing for a summer? I've done Scout camps, and its a lot of fun. Lousy pay, usually great location, someone else does the cooking. Lot of routine boring stuff, like making sure the kids take thier meds, doing camp inspections, etc., but when there is an emergency, they really need someone who knows what to do. The nurse/medic gets to play (pick a camp that has stuff you like, rock climbing or horses, lakes, canoes etc.), but not always a lot of other duties because of the need to be available.

There were forty miles of dirt, mountain roads between me and the nearest doc, I had protocols and lots of autonomy.

It makes a good break from stuff, while still being needed.

jiraporn · Apr 5, 2006

Think about cardiac cath lab...there are all kinds of thrill in there.. special for adrenaline addicted nurse..(in my opinion)

RainbowSkye · Apr 8, 2006

Ha! I work in the boonies and take care of plenty of crackheads and mh patients. There was even a poor little kid who died this past weekend who had ingested mom's crack.

The problem with mental health patients out here is that it takes the mental health counselor about an hour to arrive before the patient can be assessed. Then of course, there are no psych beds available for that patient. We've actually kept suicidal patients on a mental health hold for three days in a ER bed...

I'm not sure where you should go next. Heck, I've been working in the ER since 1979 and I'm ready for a change myself (which is why I'm reading this thread).

Good luck.

RonRN18 · Apr 8, 2006

When I first changed my major to nursing, I always wanted to be an ER nurse. I "spent some time in the trenches", doing home-care, SNF, sub-acute, Med/Surg, Peds, mental health, ICU and Peds ICU prior to getting to the ER. I started in 2000 in the ER and LOVED it from the get-go. When I first got in the ER, nearly all of the ER nurses were well-experienced in multiple areas. It was difficult to get into the ER at first, but then they started taking new grads and things started going down hill. I really didn't enjoy being the charge nurse in the ER, but I liked having a "new grad" (less than 2 years as a nurse) being the charge nurse over me even worse. I had a hard time respecting their "authority". As many of the senior nurses left, it seem to lose the fun that I had. I became the lead preceptor for new nurses coming to the ER, but it just wasn't as much fun. As I started to have more of a personal life (my first 9 years in nursing I had ZERO personal life... work WAS my personal life.) I ended up getting married and moving a couple hours away. I now work full-time as a critical care transport nurse... and LOVING it. For example, today, I spent the first 10 hours of my day giving impromptu lectures to my 2 EMT partners that are wanting to go to nursing school. The two I worked with today don't normally do CCT, and they were both quite curious as to what some of the equipment we carry is for. I explained each and in some cases broke into math session or patho/physiology "lectures". I found it quite fun because they wanted to learn. I still get the occasional exciting call, but there is a lot of down time that we can do many other things. Somedays, especially if I'm working with a couple female EMTs, we go shopping. Many days we hang out in bookstores or coffee shops. During my 8+ months of full-time work, I've come across many emergency scenes, even though we aren't technically a response unit. Just last week, we came across a vehicle accident that had just occurred and we pulled an unconscious person out of a burning car. That was pretty exciting. I'd probably get burned out of it if that is ALL I was doing at work. Probably the majority of my transports are quite short (5.4 miles for our "bread & butter" call... a "stable" patient with a femoral artery sheath in-place). My biggest fear when I started CCT was dealing with ventillator calls... in the hospital, I'd always dealt with RTs that didn't like us messing with "their" vents, and now I was the one and only person to deal with the vent. After much discussions with a co-worker and some self-studying, I now feel pretty comfortable with vented patients.

All-in-all, it was a great move going to CCT from the ER... I still like the ER, but I'm in a better mental state-of-health now.