can you be burned out before you finish nursing school?

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Please don't hate me for saying this, because I know how hard it is to get into Nursing school: but I don't want to go back! I feel burned out already. I feel cynical. Any drive to help people and heal has been beaten out of me by regulatory rules, the constant nitpicking, the fear of lawsuits, and the reality nurses aren't always respected.

I'm in my mid 30s. I am intelligent and have a Bachelor's already in another field. I am financially secure and don't need to rush into the workforce to make ends meet. I have the potential to do really great things. And I sincerely have compassion and empathy - I want to be the best nurse I can be.

I am an idealistic fool. I thought nursing meant healing, helping, and care. My rose colored glasses are officially off.

I have finished year 1 out of 2 at my school (R.N. program). I earned As and Bs in the major. But I was having HORRIBLE nightmares for the first time in my life - all revolving around instructors and Clinicals My doc put me on an antianxiety med to keep me from melting down when the instructors tried to "teach us" by verbally beating on us. What is this, Army boot camp? The med made me feel dead to everything, and I found ways to manage without it. But the nightmares and the sick-to-my-stomach dread still haunt me.

I entered into what everyone said was one of the best 2 year RN programs in the state. There is a multi-year waiting list and I'm told a very high NCLEX pass rate. But now that I am in it, I've lost all respect for them. The program is disorganized. Half the assignments are on an online web site which is outdated and goes down without warning. The instructors I thought I looked up seem incompetent in the clinical setting. Classes never have one instructor per subject, so you have 6-8 instructors all tossing in tidbits and doing parts of their lecture -- and when things don't match up, I'm supposed to guess which instructor is writing the exam question. Exams always have glaring errors on them. And the worst part is the clinical setting, where our aides blow us off because they can and the nurse we're working under is often "too busy". I had one pt with hx of TIA lose consciousness for a moment, then remain disoriented, while p/t demanded the guy (who was in agony) get into the wheelchair -- and my nurse would not come back to check on him, so I am running back and forth to her room giving her updates on this elderly man who needed help NOW. I am sick of being yelled at for not getting all tasks done, when I am spending most of my time documenting every time I do anything -- but hospital computers including the ones at the Magnet hospital, are often broken, won't let us log in, crash suddenly, or have buggy software. If a doctor walks up, I am required to give him the pt chart I was working on or log off the only working computer in the section, because he's the doctor and I'm just the nurse. Hospital equipment such as pulse-ox, accucheck, or thermometer are missing or broken(!!) And then end of shift my instructor is chewing me out again for being too slow. The RNs I work under take (maybe not so safe) shortcuts. Hospital procedures are not being followed. Patients are getting bedsores or suffering untreated pain -- as I watch, powerless.

I am sorry to complain, but I'm also sick of my classmates: The students who don't care about integrity or others -- this is their only path to a decent-paying job. The students who cheat (and some even brag about it). The students who don't do pt all care, document they did it, and look great to Instructors when they're always done early. The students who will throw you under the bus if they think it'll get them brownie points with someone. And the students who are downright nasty to others - both to other students as well as patients and aides. Why did I bother to write a proper care plan when classmates laughed afterwards how they "made up the citations" or copied things from the internet? Why can't I take electronic notes in class which will help me learn, yet nobody sees the girls on either side of me have their phones under the desk, sending txt messages to boyfriends all lecture? Why is my cellphone turned off when in clinicals the Drama Queen in our group "has to keep hers on" for the constant phone calls from her husband and kids? Perhaps someday karma will catch up with them, but in the meantime I am a bit embarrassed to be part of this graduating class.

I have no friends in the nursing program, despite my efforts. They don't show up for study dates, don't care and give me wrong answers for due dates, etc. My class has already lost 15-20% of students just between 1st and 2nd semester, mostly due to failing grades. I had no problem making friends in other classes, but these people in my nursing class are, well, different.

I have 2 semesters to go. I can go back next month and pass the program, but perhaps not with all As, as discouraged as I am. Will the nightmares get worse? But until I can sort out what is upsetting me so much about nursing (the program I'm in? my advisor who doesn't care? what?), I will graduate with even more of a sick-of-it-already feeling already. I want to do nursing, but if it's anything like my class & clinical experiences so far, I will be miserable!

Please don't tell me to "just suck it up". That tells me you don't understand the extent of my dread & anxiety, and it's plain just not constructive.

Would I be stupid for telling the school I'll re-join them next year? They'd make me feel like I was a worthless piece of crap for not returning this fall, but I know they'd let me continue next fall.

Please help!

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nice post. i laughed.

not to minimize your frustration...but dont most of us go through it?

i relate to just about everything you said, only my response is different: numbness. :yawn: oh and just going through the motions until this hell is over. hahaha. :crying2:

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nice post. i laughed.

not to minimize your frustration...but dont most of us go through it?

i relate to just about everything you said, only my response is different: numbness. :yawn: oh and just going through the motions until this hell is over. hahaha. :crying2:

thank you. If nothing else I feel better know that I am not alone in feeling like this. :)

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Specializes in PICU/Pedi.

I'm sorry that NS has truned out this way for you. It is hard when you realize that nursing is not anything like our "idea" of nursing. And it kind of sucks to go into a well-respected program and find that they are disorganized and that there is a major lack of communication everywhere. From what I have seen on these forums, though, it seems that alot of schools have these same problems. I am in my last year of NS, too, and so I can't tell you from my own experience, but the people I know that have graduated say that NS is totally different from real-world nursing. Alot of people have told me that they hated clinicals and classes and that the only thing that kept them going throughout school was the goal of working in whatever unit it was in which they wanted to work. It might make you feel better knowing that NS is just a means to an end, and the end is just around the corner for us. We have worked so hard, and we are almost done!

But, on the other hand, do you think that you will still want to be a nurse, even knowing that nurses aren't respected, don't have time for their patients, etc.? You know some of the reality now. Are you still interested in the job, knowing that there is a ton of responsibility, and a lot of hard work and not much thanks? It is okay to realize that maybe nursing is not for you, after all. And better realizing now, rather than after graduation.

If you can still honestly say that you want to be a nurse after all this, then I would say to keep your eye on the prize. Try not to worry about everybody else's cheating, texting during class, drama, etc. Acknowledege the negative parts of nursing (broken equipment, dealing with doctors, etc.) but also focus on the parts of it that you like - the things that make you want to be a nurse in the first place. It's just another year. If you want it , you can make it through. But if you decide it's not worth the anxiety, then figure out out what it is that you WANT to do. And know that you always have a place to vent here at AllNurses!

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NO do not let other people make you wait to finish school if the nurses were that bad at the hospitial than you need to get out of nursing school asap so that you can change the way things are going those pts need you

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I met a nurse (friend of a friend) who loves, loves, LOVES nursing (she's been at it almost 20 years). She gushes about her work, her co-workers, her patients. But don't ask her about nursing school. Her entire expression changes instantly, into a mixture of sadness and anger, and she will only describe it as "absolute hell." She says it took her many, many years after school to begin to get past her experiences in school.

It seems that your experience may not be that uncommon, but I won't tell you to "suck it up." Maybe keep in mind that "real life" will be very different than your current experience, so just consider this something that you have to get through, in order to do what you really want. Maybe taking that year off, as you suggested, may be a good opportunity to take a break from such an awful experience, because it sounds like you just aren't feeling up to going back right now. Maybe in that time off you could volunteer in a unit you're interested in working in, shadow a nurse in the specialty you're hoping to get into, etc. to remind of you of why you need to get through those last 2 semesters. You may end up going back refreshed, and with a renewed motivation to take on the bullsh**. :D

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Just wanted to say I have felt like this so many times during my training (I, fingers crossed, qualify next April). In January I felt like I wanted to go back to my old job, but after talking with close friends on the course who also felt the same, I realised that I'd be throwing away a great opportunity. I've encountered lazy health care staff who expect me to do everything with little mentorship or help but more often I've encountered dedicated health care staff who are more than willing to give me their time and share their experience. Like you - my rose tinted glasses are permanently off! Do you have a personal tutor you could talk to? Hope things get better, take care:)

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I've also wondered some of the same things from a non-traditional perspective. You've heard the expression, "Those that can do, those that can't teach." lol I've wondered if that was true for nurse instructors. We've all seen it.

I think my primary motivator for attending nursing school was to have another job option along with an education pertaining to things that interest me; patho, pharm, assessment, etc. My first degree is mostly useless, and I've spent seven or so years regretting it wishing I had something "useful." There are many jobs where you can help people so that's the least motivator for me.

I'm also concerned about the type of reaction you're getting from instructors. I've spent the last several years in law enforcement, and I've perhaps taken that too seriously, so now it's my built in reaction to take charge of a situation. It's called "command presence." It's taught, and it's an aquired shift in personality among officers. There's even a physiological change associated with it. That's one reason a lot of officers end up with divorce because they don't have give and take personalities. "Are we having a conversation, or are you interrogating me?" I'm open to criticism, but watch how you go about it. Where I'm going with this is when I perceive threats it's very difficult, if not impossible, to back down from the situation at hand so a snarky teacher could prove difficult to work with.

I also have nothing to lose really because like the OP I can do other things. I've been a paramedic, as an interesting hobby more than anything, which is not nursing, but I'm not new to healthcare fortunately.

Additionally, I have concerns about the methods. I understand you're working around people's health, but I hear things about class demerits and so forth, and that makes me think it's all kind of silly. I often wonder how progressive student nurse education is. There seem to be a lot of requirements for students many of which don't seem to make sense looking in on the profession.

That's my spill.

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Well, I'm a student as well; just finished the BSN portion of the program and now will start working on an MSN. I did experience some of the things you did, but not all. I had some great instructors and overall the program I attended was very success based - the instructors were cheering us on and hoping for our success.

Having said that, I also had a couple of instructors that were not quite what I would have wanted but that's just something I had to get through. I had a couple of clinical rotations that were absolutely wonderful...and some that were not so much.

Anxiety is common amongst nursing students from what I've heard. I'm not sure if the anxiety is caused by NS or if people with a tendency to become anxious are attracted to the profession. At any rate I think you will find this is temporary for you if it's not something that was a problem prior to school. We were told by the psych folks at school that the NS students made up a lot of their client population!

As for the nurses you've seen during clinicals who cut corners or do not provide the level of patient care you were expecting, remember that they may have been at their jobs long enough that they know how to safely cut some corners. Or maybe they just aren't very good at their jobs and you know what, you'll have that in every profession. That doesn't mean you have to lower your own standards for yourself!

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Your story resonates well with me. My only difference is that I respond like another poster: numbness. Right now, I'm going through the motions, so to speak. My instructors are great, thank God, but I'm just trucking through and looking at the light at the end of the tunnel. I can't seem to get the grades that I want no matter how hard I work and fellow students can be mean and downright evil.

I struggle with the fact that the goals I had going into nursing school flew out the window when I actually experienced the area I wanted to pursue. The thought of, "Why did I leave a great career for this" pops into my mind weekly. But, I believe I've found my new niche in nursing and hope to find a position in the specialty upon graduation. That keeps me moving along.

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Specializes in LTC, Psych, Hospice.

I've been out of school for almost 15 years and I'm back now in an LPN/BSN bridge program. What in the world was I thinking??? NS is HELL! I'm always studying, reading, researching, and don't even get me started on that d%%ned APA format! Why do I do it? Because I'm a very good, caring LPN and I want to be an RN. I just keep my eye on the prize. I also like to think about an instructor I had in LPN school---what a witch! NOTHING ever suited her. She'd nit-pick everything you turned in. Know what? I still remember things she taught me about care plans. I haven't done a careplan since school, but I'm ready. Just remember that this too shall pass. Don't give up now! Good luck to you!:)

PS: YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

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Like Dr.House says "It is in the nature of medicine that you are gonna screw up. You are gonna kill someone. If you can't handle that reality, pick another profession. Or finish medical school and teach."

New mistakes are okay/ sometimes can be forgiven , but repeating the same mistakes over ( now that is a serious problem).

Fear--it is good to have. Sometimes fear can make you do a better job and become a great nurse because you will think twice or more before you take action.People who are not scared / or worry about anything and keep saying ( he,she is going to be okay) later they find out that their patient died dehydrated.It is a true story.

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