Burnt-out at the last semester (BSN) for a M-urse. Need advice STAT!

twinkerrs · Oct 18, 2012

Do you feel better now that you got it off your chest? I know sometimes just venting helps me put things into perspective. I have no words to help you or advice to give. Just know you must do what is best for YOU. I think a lot of people feel like you do close to the end of their program. It is a scary transition ahead but it can be done.

tokebi · Oct 18, 2012

Do you know many of the things you pointed out are actually common experience? I thought many nursing theories were BS, I was dissatisfied with science courses, many of my colleagues had to suffer through terrible preceptors, care plans are often useless... I am happy with the education I got overall, but there are just things you have to bear with in any nursing school.

You are so close to graduation. If it is possible at all to hang on just a bit longer, it'll serve you well in long term to finish program and graduate. And if you can find it in yourself to give it a try working as a nurse, it'll be different from nursing school experience. After that, you can decide to walk away from nursing for good. But by then, you might also discover areas in nursing that suits you.

It sounds like you might really enjoy the structured and disciplined envrionment of military. But make sure you graduate with a degree. Then you can enter as an officer.

I am really sorry how nursing school changed your person like that. I wish you the best.

classicdame, MSN, EdD · Oct 18, 2012

I was depressed too, at the end of school. I believe that fatigue (both mental and physical) had a lot to do with it. Try to persevere till graduation. Remember, not all nurses work in hospitals. You might get a nursing job then, when you get settled in, consider hospital administration or some other avenue. I do not think you need to make long term goals right now. Just get thru each day, graduate and HOPEFULLY, take some time off. Then you might have a different perspective. Wishing you all the best.

LVN2RNMom, ASN, BSN, LVN · Oct 18, 2012

This is your life & no one else's!!! F*ck them & their lame opinions. Who cares anyways? This is the attitude you need to have. Yes, we need to respect each other & everyone has a right to their opinion but you are allowing others to alter your healthy state of mind. Life is hard & isn't easy. If you live your life according to others, you will always be affected & hurt. Stand up, brush yourself off & hold your head up high for accomplishing all the goals you have completed. You have come a long way to give up now. Push forward then you will never have to look at some of those faces again. Doing the right thing isn't always easy but if it was, we wouldn't work for anything.

Good Morning, Gil · Oct 19, 2012

You said you have a science background, but have you worked full time yet for any length of time? Regardless of job type/profession, there will be things that you don't particularly enjoy. Patients are not going to be nice all of the time, and co-workers are not going to be nice all of the time. You will work with difficult people regardless of work setting.

When you say that your charge nurse, and preceptor ate you alive, I find that concerning. I mean....the "nurses eating their young" does happen, and there will be the occasional nurse or two that does not treat new nurses very kindly. But, why were both of them mean? It's possible that are just bitter people, but were they just giving you constructive criticism? What made them awful people?

Perhaps nursing isn't for you, but you did work hard to get where you are, and your family is relying on you like you said. Since they are relying on you financially, then working after school as a nurse is a good idea.

More importantly, though, you might find that you enjoy it more once you're more confident in your abilities. If you don't, then you can find a different job or go back to school after a few years of experience.

You have to do what you're comfortable with, though, and only you will know what you can handle. The first year of nursing is the hardest for anyone, but it can be made much easier depending on the job you land after graduation. My first few months of nursing at my first job were difficult as I had a short orientation, and was charge nurse with a full patient load right away. However, I grew quickly, and learned how to be a leader, stuck it out, built rapport with my co-workers and did well. Confidence is built with time and experience.

CynthiaG · Oct 19, 2012

When I graduated I started working a cpl of different jobs and had a complete mental breakdown. NO ONE will understand how stressful it is to be a nurse and have to deal with all that we have to deal with. Nurses will stab each other in the back with no problem and new nurses get eaten alive. Nursing is multifaceted and I STRONGLY believe you cannot just walk in to your local hospital and assume the role of an RN. It is not a job. Its not something that you can do because "well I have bills to pay." You have an added stress of feeling responsible for your family and trying to assimilate not only to America but to the world of nursing. I myself went through a period after I started working when I said if this is what nursing is I don't want anything to do with it. Every thing you said above is 100% accurate. New nurses do get eaten alive. You are expected to know everything and if you forgot something you either feel like an idiot or someone calls you an idiot. You need to do what you need to do for yourself. You cannot take care of patients unless you are healthy and not going to be having a burnout. There is not going to be a way to explain your feelings to anyone except those that have been through what you have been through. Most of my family members DO NOT understand the world of nursing and what it takes and what kind of stress we undergo. It sounds like you are going through a transitional crisis that is VERY common with new nurses. A lot of people including myself have felt the way you are feeling now. The important thing to remember is if you want to do this you need to do it for you and not worry about what others expect of you. You are living your life not anyone else. You are the one who holds the responsibility. Trying to please others and ignoring your own needs and feelings will only hurt you in the long run. Just remember.............A LOT of nurses go through this. Hang in there!

TurtleLittle, BSN, MSN, DNP, RN, CRNA · Oct 20, 2012

Thank you everyone for replying back to my post promptly. I am feeling better and yes I am still hanging in there. Even though I am venting, I will still follow this journey till the end. At least to get my BSN anyways, I would not drop everything 2 months prior to graduation.

To GoodMorning,Gill: I agree with you that for any jobs you would have to deal with some unpleasant situations regardless. I did work before. I worked some temp labor jobs such as in the ink factory, shipping part in a storage, Mc Donald's before getting in college. That previous working experience actually gave me the strong motivation in my academic career. That's why I said I might not have my true heart for nursing, otherwise I would be able to look pass these low points because I had worse before.

The drama with the charge nurse and my preceptors during my Summer preceptor as well as my lack for confidence could be explained a little bit more.

I went to a junior college in a suburban setting. The school had a good reputation ( it is considered the best junior college to transfer to prestige schools around the area). When I finished my pre-regs, I got super good stats to get into any nursing school around the area if I wanted. Fortunately, due to some technical situation with transcript and school system (quarter unit to semester unit, and 1 class still in process during the Summer), I might have had to wait for a year before being able to apply. During that time, I applied for some schools but I knew I would pass all of the deadlines anyways so it was a cheap shot. However, I got accepted to a school 3 hours away from my city and in a much smaller-rural setting. This school kinda had a reputation as a "party school" n the setting supposedly was not so favor for me (in rural small hospitals mostly for clinical). At the time, I thought positively that nursing schools' standard should be the same anywhere as they are all accredited and it is always more about what I put in instead of the school anyways. I have always gotten good academic performance too so I should not be worried. So I chose to go to that school instead of waiting for a year. Unfortunately, the school was in a transition of changing the curriculum and updating. I realized how messy and un-organized the school was, given I checked with other schools' curriculum to make sure I am saying this with an informed judgement. All of my clinical were at small hospitals.

I am still not concerned too much until I got my reality shock at my preceptorship during the Summer in a much more suburban setting (this is more like a non-paid volunteer/externship oppourtinity btw). The hospital was really well-known Trauma I, the biggest of the whole region and a teaching institute. They usually have students from the two popular nursing schools in their city doing clinical here. Even though I learned a lot during the time I was there, I still had a feeling that the nurses were not so thrilled with my background from a "party" school and "clinical exp in rural hospital settings only". I feel that they were pretty territorial. They were biased and belittled me in deceived professional manners I guess. I was not used to the new hospital setting at all of course and my preceptor said "compared to other students I had before, they were more comfortable". The charge nurse said, "you did not impress me at all. I feel like you are in your 1st semester rather than your last." During the time I was there, the charge nurse refused to let me have any complex pts with a lot of stuffs to do (like ventilator, trach care, multiple drips, A-line, etc.). She said I was not her responsibility, and staffing had nothing to do with me being there. The preceptor was very nice in the beginning and then became a jerk after an incident I had with him (basically he made a mistake and I tried to cover for him when it was not even my fault, then he blamed me for being incompetent n getting him into trouble with the manager). During the last couple shifts, he told me to do tasks for him strictly without any teaching opportunities. He thought I was talking too much with other staffs (and all I did was just responding to the staff whenever they asked me question, let along gossiping). He was really rude and cut me off all the time whenever I tried to ask questions. He discouraged me to start of in the ICU. Ironically that the preceptor got hired here fresh out of school and the charge nurse graduated from the Philippines and basically they implied I was not smart enough to be in this unit. I thought they would be more understanding and relate to me with their backgrounds. I later found out that the preceptor was brand-new at this teaching and precepting thing. It was also a trial for him to impress the manager to get promoted or something by teaching me. I still do not understand why the manage gave me him instead of many of other experienced nice preceptors on the floor. It could have been different. It was a bad combination as I was kinda upset toward the end and might have snaped back at my preceptor couple times, but I still tried my best to stay professional til I finished my last day.

I reported the situation to my school and I felt like my instructors were also insecure with their shortcomings from a rural school. No-one would back me up and said that I actually had better experience than other students who also had this fortunate (or misfortune really) opportunity. So I was not the only who got treated poorly .....was the excuse??? I thought about talking to the director of my school about it but decided not to. Reasoning: for this preceptorship, the director had been very discouraging the students (go figure!). She actually referred students to go to the "traditional" rural preceptorship that the school had always gotten to offer. We had had to work our way to get in contact and other things to get the placement in this urban hospital preceptorship. She still agreed to help but was not thrilled much. So telling her about the situation might upset her more and might do a dis-service for all of my fellow nursing friends because we insisted persistently to get the preceptorship at this hospital. I do not want to investigate further more in the political aspects of this situation because I might just open another can of worms.

THen when I did my resume, I did not know why I let my friends convince me to write an email to ask for recommendation from the preceptor. They thought I was being hyper-critical of myself again and I actually did pretty well. The reply email was " I had to give this some thought and consulted with the staff at my workplace regarding the matter. Unfortunately, I do not feel comfortable. Good luck with ur career". I cried after reading that. I felt like the whole unit rejected me. I ruined my chance to work there or getting into their future residency program (this was like a big gambling too because I had to pay a lot of money for the preceptorship because the State did not support the Summer semester units). I got rejected from a well-known institute with superior training for nurses (very famous), what does it say about me? Of course I felt like I was a loser indeed. Maybe I was really incompetent.

So I have always wondered and wondered more since then. What if I had waited for another year and got into those two schools that got to rotate at this hospital. With a different school, would my nursing education be different? I feel really bad to think of my school this way. I lost faith in my school. So I lost faith in my education. All because I chose the "wrong" one, a "party" school. I had great friends here and the teachers were really nice but again did I hurt my education because I decided to go here?

I understand though I might be clouded with my poor judgements from insecurity at the moment too. So all the things I just said might not be the entire truth, maybe just an angel of the situation. But you know when you just had some bad experience like that and you got to start last semester back up right after and got bombarded with million goals to achieve just to prepare for your first job after graduation (your first real pain of real-life nursing, another hoop to jump). It becomes overwhelming. I am glad to hear that I was not the only one though. Thank you everyone, again!