Burnout: What would you do in my situation

[guest1074618]

I became a nurse at 18 because I thought "sweet, high pay and only 3 days week". Yeah...I was 18.

I'm a BSN prepared nurse and have been in the ER for 3 years and hate it. I hate patient care and dealing with the public. I hate the long hours/weekends/holidays. I went back for FNP solely for the money.

I'm halfway through FNP school and start clinicals this fall. Im having second thoughts thinking what if I graduate this and still hate it?

So I've been thinking maybe getting away from bedside or finding another career. However I keep thinking of the time/money wasted on nursing and fnp. I'm also not sure what I would even change to.

I've been told im an excellent nurse and do provide great patient care, I just dont enjoy this. I get anxious thinking about having to go into work and deal with the patients for 12 hours. I hate missing time with family and the erratic hours. I'm just..unhappy :(

So any advice from more seasoned nurses?

[Oldmahubbard]

FNP might be more money or not, but it won't be weekends or holidays, apart from maybe call. Some FNP jobs are long hours, I understand.

You will also have much more autonomy to say "no" when dealing with people.

It took about 3 or 4 years before my Psych NP degree began to pay off, but I didn't do it for the money.

The ER population is also not very much like the primary care people you will soon be meeting.

Being a nurse and an NP are nothing at all alike. The only similarity is the word nurse in the title. The jobs could not be much more different.

[PollywogNP, ADN, BSN, MSN, LPN, NP]

Half-way there is great. When you start clinicals that will give you opportunity to explore future options & to talk to others who have been in your shoes. When I finished FNP I was going to go make big bucks! Instead I answered an ad for a clinical instructor at the community college I had once attended. That job led to 10 years teaching at local university. None of that was in my plans when I was a student. I also worked in the ER, but it was a small ER, small cohesive staff that worked well together, not a huge crazy understaffed ER with ambulance after ambulance rolling in etc etc. Hang in there! FNP & a Masters will open doors you may not even have considered.

[Bones17]

Could you not combine it with a teaching degree?

[Forest2]

I like to take care of patients that come and go quickly. I don't like having the same ones all day long for a few days in a row. That gets sooooo old. So what kinds of patients do you think you like or can tolerate?

Maybe you are tired of patients all together. So, what can you do as a nurse and not have patients? I'm not real sure what possibilities are out there for a NP that doesn't want to deal with people. What part of your ER job do you find the least awful? Do you want to be an ER educator?